1825.] 
[439° j 
SPIRIT OF PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOVERY, AND OF THE 
VARIOUS SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
<<a 
‘HE Solar Spots appear during twelve 
days, and disappear during the follow- 
ing fifteen days, before their re-appearance. 
Stannyan and Cassini observed this fact, 
which now the Rey. J. B. Emmett has 
confirmed, by a series of observations, com- 
municated to the ‘‘ dnnals of Philosophy :” 
and yet, almost by general consent, modern 
astronomical writers have spoken of spots 
on the sun being visible and invisible during 
equal periods, of thirteen days and a-half 
each. Mr. Emmett says, that Sir William 
Herschell’s hypothesis concerning their 
cause is quite inadmissible :—when viewed 
with a telescope of sufficient power and 
great distinctness, their form presents many 
inexplicable phenomena. It is hoped that 
astronomers will redouble their exertions to 
ascertain the nature and laws which regu- 
late these spots. 
The Nature and Peculiarities of Heat and 
Light, soiar and terrestrial, have been in- 
quired into, by an elaborate course of obser- 
vations and experiments, which are detailed 
in the “ Annals of Philosophy,” No. 53, by 
Mr. Baden Powell; whose memoir con- 
eludes with the following very ingenious 
suggestion, viz. “‘We have become ac- 
quainted with matter in three different 
forms, or states, solids, liquids and gases: 
but there is nothing, in nature, to prevent 
the supposition, that there may be other 
states, in which matter is capable of existing, 
which may form an extension of this series, 
at either end, and owe their difference to 
the same cause, viz. the possessing or los- 
ing a certain quantity of latent heat. May 
not, then, light be one of such forms of 
matter ?—a term in the series, occupying 
a place beyond gazeous bodies (though not 
necessarily next to them), and owing its 
peculiar form to the absorption of a certain 
quantity of latent heat ?” 
Electricily excited by the Burning of Paper 
and Alcohol.—M. Becquerel has found, as the 
result of numerous experiments, that when 
a roll of paper is set on fire at one end, the 
flame thereof becomes negatively electrified, 
and the paper positively. He also found, 
that when Alcohol is burned in a copper 
dish, the latter becomes positively elec- 
trified.—Ann. de Chim. 
Alterations of the Level of the Sea, as com- 
pared with the Land.—Under this head, in 
our last volume, p. 529, we endeavoured to 
caution our readers against the hasty con- 
clusions which some of our Northern neigh- 
bours were disposed to draw, regarding a 
sensible and rather rapid decrease of the 
waters of the Baltic; and in p. 243 
of the present volume, we have recorded 
several recent facts, of a truly alarming 
nature to the inhabitants or occupiers of 
sea-marsh lands, on the British and Con- 
tinental shores, and on their tidal rivers.— 
It appears, however, that accounts continue 
to have their round of publication in maga-: 
zines and newspapers, asserting, that the 
level of the Baltic Sea is at this time de- 
creasing at the rate of 4-10ths of an inch 
annually ; and that ‘* Revel, Abo, Narva, 
and a hundred other parts, will, by and bye, 
become inland towns: the Gulphs of 
Bothnia and Finland, and ultimately the 
Baltic itself, will be changed into dry 
land!’’ The same accounts, notwithstand- 
ing, state, that the Gulph of Bothnia sinks 
more than half an inch yearly, and that 
‘** where the Baltic unites with the German 
Ocean, through the Cattegat, no change 
seems perceptible,”’ in the level of the tidal 
waters. On this we remark, that an elabo- 
rate comparison, made (by a correspondent 
of ours) in the autumn of 1820, of all the 
soundings, or depths of water, marked in the 
largest and best charts, of the entire Baltic 
Sea, and of the German or North Sea, 
shewed, that the communication between 
these two seas is by twelve different chan- 
nels, of the respective depths in their cen- 
tres which follow, beginning on the west, 
next to Jutland, viz - the first has 6 fathoms 
depth of water, the second 10 fathoms, the 
third 6 fathoms, the fourth 1 fathom, the 
fifth 9} fathoms (this last being the prin- 
cipal channel for ships passing through the 
Great-Belt; to which, on the east, a 
5 fathom bank succeeds), the sixth 1 fa- 
thom, the seventh 2 fathoms, the eighth 
3 fathoms, the ninth 3 fathoms (then, after 
passing through Copenhagen city), the 
tenth channel has 3& fathoms . water 
(then a bank, studded with small islands), 
to the eleventh channel, 4 fathoms (in 
the passage for ships, called the sound, to 
which a 2? fathom bank succeeds), and the 
twelfth channel has 3} fathoms depth of 
water, and is next to the Swedish coast. 
Now, if the Baltic be really lowering its 
surface, as contended for above, the North 
Sea must, on the contrary, be, in a conside- 
rably greater degree, rising, in order to 
maintain the surface of the current, through 
these twelve channels (the deepest of them 
only ten fathoms in depth), at an unvarying 
height, as the accounts, above alluded to, 
state. But, let us ask, is there any such 
unvarying current into the Baltic? and 
does the velocity of this current sensibly 
increase? both of which must happen if 
the Baltic be really decreasing in height, 
and the North Sea stationary; and more 
so still, if the latter sea sensibly increases 
in height, as we maintain to be the fact : 
and we strongly incline to the belief, that 
sufficiently careful inquiries into past events, 
and the recording of future observations, 
