1826.] Philo'iophkal, Chemical, and Scientific Miscellanies. 



lithogi-aphy, has discovered a new method 

 of stereotypinj*, which is thus effected. A 

 sheet of common printing paper is covered 

 with a coat of stony earth half a line 

 in thickness, which is moistened with a 

 sufficient quantity of water; at the end of 

 half an hour this assumes the consistency 

 of paste, and is then sjjrcad ir\ tiic frames 

 over the characters, which are arranfjed as 

 usual, but not blackened, and whicii are 

 thus impressed upon the paste. The sheets 

 are then dried upon a stone slab and co- 

 vered with meltod metal ; the writing then 

 appears in relief upon a thin plate of metal, 

 and exactly formed upon the original letters. 

 The copies taken from these stercotyijed 

 characters do not differ from what are ob- 

 tained by the ordinary process. The inven- 

 tion will not be made public till the author 

 has obtained a subscription of 100 florins 

 each from tliirty subscribers. The expense 

 of the apparatus necessary for the casting, he 

 estimates at 100 florins, or £1 1. 3s. TS^W. 

 and that of the paper, covered with the 

 stony paste, at six kreutzers, or 2,676 pence 

 per sheet — Gaz. of Munich. 



Hieroglyphics. — The jjropcnsity of the 

 French literati to a])proi)riate to them- 

 selves, or rather to claim as their own, the 

 discoveries of others, has excited against 

 them generally the suspicion of philoso- 

 phers, and in particular instances contempt 

 or indignation. In science, as in love, ac- 

 cording to the observation of Moliere, ce 

 n'est que le premier pas qui route, and of the 

 honour of having made that first step on 

 which the whole depended, in decyphering 

 the hieroglyphics, M. ChampoUion en- 

 deavoured to deprive our countryman Dr. 

 Young; how satisfactorily the plagiarism 

 was brought home, it is needless to point 

 out, nor should we now have reverted to tlie 

 subject had not the same line of conduct 

 been pursued, by the younger ChampoUion 

 towards S. di S. Quintino, and very pro- 

 perly exposed by the latter, who has dis- 

 covered that the ancient Egyptians wrote 

 the numerical fractions, nearly in the manner 

 which is at present adopted in Europe. 



Netherlands. — The kingdom of the Ne- 

 therlands contains six universities ; three in 

 the northern, three in the southern pro- 

 vinces : at Leyden, Utrecht, Groningen, 

 Gand, Louvain and Liege. Each univer- 

 sity is divided into fom' faculties, 1. law, 

 2. medicine, 3. science, 4. philosophy and 

 letters. In the northern provinces a fifth 

 faculty is added for Protestant theology ; 

 and in opposition to these, six seminaries 

 offer to the poi)ish subjects theological in- 

 struction adapted to the principles of their 

 religion. — Rev. Encyc. 



Strength of Men. — The strength of sa- 

 vages has frequently been represented as 

 far superior to that of men in a state of 

 civilization : towards the end of the last 

 century an ingenious instrument, to which 

 he gave the name of dynamometer, was in- 

 vented by M. Regnier of Semur, for de- 



*07 



termining with precision both human poVver 

 and tliat of macliinery. This was employed 

 by Pcron in his voyage to New Holland, 

 and this able navigator has shown that the 

 strength of savages is uniformly less than 

 that of civilized men. 



Mineralogist. — The imanimous opinion 

 of well informed persons respecting Dr. 

 Macculloch's mineralogical account of the 

 western highlands of Scotland, is well 

 known, and has been decidedly exjiressed. 

 The following anecdote, of which we 

 pledge ourselves for the authenticity, may 

 show the light in which this sad slanderer 

 is seen by the lower classes. During the 

 coiu'se of last Summer, two young gentle- 

 men were shooting in the island of Skye : 

 on visiting the house of a clergj'raan where 

 he was known, one of them, anticipating 

 a scene, told the servant in Gaelic to an- 

 nounce himself or his companion as Dr. 

 llacculloch. The news were rapidly dif- 

 fused over the parish, and while the sports- 

 men and tlieir host \\'ere still engaged at 

 their luncheon, an immense mob, armed 

 with every weapon tliat chance supplied, 

 had surrounded the house, and to the inqui- 

 ries of the astonished pastor replied, that 

 they came for, and would insist upon having 

 delivered to them the traducer of their 

 country, that, according to ancient usage, 

 they might hurl him into the ocean from 

 the loftiest cliff in the island. An expla- 

 nation then ensued, but it was only by the 

 greatest exertions of the worthy pastor, and 

 the personal influence of the son of the pro- 

 prietor of Skye, whose frolic had occasioned 

 the disturbance, that the irritated multitude 

 could be induced to depart. 



Rotatory Oars. — Sir. Perkins, whose 

 improved steam engine has excited so much 

 attention, and whose abilities as an engineer 

 have been so generally acknowledged, Jias 

 recently obtained a patent for a method of 

 propelling vessels by means of rotatory oars, 

 attached to the sterns of vessels, and acting 

 against the water, in a manner analagous 

 to the tail of a fish. 



Magnetism. — Professor Hansteen, who 

 has paid much attention to the phenomena 

 of magnetism, having observed that there 

 are natural magnets having four poles, two 

 and two of the same denomination, inquires 

 if the earth itself be not such an anomalous 

 magnet ; and proposes the two following 

 questions : " Are two magnetic poles suffi- 

 cient to explain all the phenomena of the 

 declination, or must we assume several of 

 them ? — What is the position and motion 

 of these poles?" To the former he is dis- 

 posed to answer in the negative ; and then 

 from combining many observations he is led 

 to conclude, that one of these poles is situ- 

 ated in North America ; that in 1769 it 

 was distant from the pole of the earth 

 19° 4v3', and that its longitude was 

 259. 58 East, and that it has a perceptible 

 motion towards the east, amounting to 

 about 10' or 12'. Another of the mae:- 



