1825. ] 
The Progressive Rise of the Sea, at spring 
tides. over-topping, at frequent intervals 
and with increasing height, the sea-walls 
or embankments in front of marshy and 
Jow-lying coast lands, which banks had, 
until our day, through a series of ages, 
protected these tracts of land from inunda- 
tions, is a fact which can no Jonger be de- 
nied, or its consequences disregarded.— 
Our ingenious correspondent, Mr. John 
Farey, hazarded an opinion, in our 56th 
volume, p. 199, that the periodic cause 
(for such he considers it to be) of the sea 
rising higher and higher, and then again 
progressively lowering, within the limits, 
perhaps, of fifteen, twenty, or thirty feet, 
perpendicular height, through periods of, 
perhaps, two or three centuries, or more, 
before the tides return again to their high- 
est or to their lowest states, at any given 
spot, on the British and the opposite con- 
tinental coasts,—that this cause might, he 
conjectured, be connected with that myste- 
rious cause which regulates the going and 
returning of the magnetic needle from the 
true north and south line, and that, there- 
fore, 1819 might have been the year when 
the tides here, having gained their greatest 
height (at the same time with the needle’s 
greatest west variation), would begin to 
decline again. Most unfortunately, this 
conjecture and expectation is not realized ; 
for the spring-tides of the 3d and 4th of 
February last rose so high, as to overtop 
the southern banks of the Thames, near 
Crayford, which had, heretofore, protected 
extensive marshes lying behind these banks, 
and did very great mischief. Sheerness- 
town, and several villages, were also deeply 
inundated. The same thing happened at 
Ipswich, Harwich, Lowestotfe, Great Yar- 
mouth, and Searborough,—the water here, 
rising near six feet higher than before 
known, fioated two new vessels off the 
stocks, damaged the Spa buildings, &c. ; 
and at Newcastle, &c. similar devastation 
has been occasioned. 
On the opposite coasts, accounts state 
the water to have been eleven feet deep in 
the streets of Flushing! Hamburgh, also, 
suffered severely from the same tides; 
which, in the Weser, from Brake to 
Blexen, rose two feet higher than the 
memorable tides of 1717, completely over- 
topped the banks, and inundated vast tracts 
of flat country: the port of Greetzeel has 
- been ruined ; that of Kmden greatly da- 
maged ; and thence to Oldenburg, the sea- 
banks and the whole of the country have 
been overflowed. 
This appears a subject on which a serious 
‘investigation, by our scientific men, ought 
speedily to take place, in order to warn the 
proprietors and occupiers of marshes, stock- 
ed with valuable cattle, and the inhabitants 
of low-situated towns and villages, of the 
indispensable necessity of systematically 
raising and strengthening their sea~walls, en- 
“bankments, quays, Sc. ; and of providing, and 
Spirit of Philosophical Discovery. 
243 
keeping in constant repair, close-shutting 
and self-acting valves or sluices, to the exits 
of the drains and sewers, through the sea- 
walls, &c.; and of otherwise providing for 
excluding still higher occasional tides, than 
any the present generation has witnessed. 
The Woad Plant, or dyers’ weed (toatis 
tinctoria), has been tried, with success, in 
North America, as an. autumn-cultivated 
green vegetable, capable of sustaining, un- 
hurt, the greatest severity of their winters, 
and in March and April furnishing green 
food for their cows, which they readily eat, 
with apparent good effects on their health, 
and without diminishing or communicat- 
ing any perceptible taste to their milk or 
butter. 
The Elm-bark Insect, whose ravages on 
the trees in St. James’s Park we have 
described in our 57th volume, p. 166, was 
there referred to the genus Hylesinus ; but 
this has lately been shewn to be a mistake, 
in No. XI. of Curtis’s ‘‘ British Entomo- 
logy,” where this insect is engraven and 
described, under the name of Scolytws De- 
structor, a specific designation well becom- 
ing its mischievous habits. 
That Manna evrisis in the Celery Plant, 
although, heretofore, it had been thought 
that no European vegetable contained this 
substance, has been shewn by Dr. Vogel, 
in a paper in Schweigger’s Journal, yol. vii. 
The leaves and stems of the apium graveo- 
lens, besides manna, contain a colourless 
yolatile oil, in which resides the peculiar 
odour of the plant ; a tremulous jelly, which 
acquires a gelatinous consistency, by the 
action of very dilute acids ;—both nitrate 
and muriate of potash are amongst the 
other products of celery: the process for 
separating the manna from which plant, 
may be seen in No, 47 of the ‘“ Annals of 
Philosophy.”’ 
The small and brilliant cubes of Titanium 
Metal, noticed in our 55th vol. p. i171, and 
our 57th vol. p. 360, continue to be found 
in all those of our blast-furnaces, for smelt- 
ing the argillaceous ores of the coal-mea- 
sures, where they are properly sought for. 
Mr. E. 8. George lately found these cubes 
thickly dispersed in the ferruginous matters 
which had penetrated the grit-stone hearth 
of the Low-moor furnaces, near Bradford 
in Yorkshire: and from them he has 
formed, and ascertained the composition of, 
the Chlorides of Titanium, as follows, vix. 
Proto- Per- 
chloride, chloride, 
Titanium ........ G12 66°6 
Chlorine .......- 36'4 79°4) 
Ann, of Phil. No. 49. 
The Silvering of Specule, for optical and 
astronomical purposes, has been improved 
by M. F. Lancellotti, who forms an amal- 
gum of three parts of pure lead, and two 
of mercury, which are fused together, and 
quickly and dexterously thrown over the 
212 surface 
