cumstances, 
of eleven experiments are 28 and 36 feet. 
1826.] 
yrs ; 
Yoo WSn 
PHILOSOPHICAL, CHEMICAL, AND SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANIES. 
doaeten; 
tet brit , 
Astronomy.— A discovery as unexpected 
as troublesome to all practical astronomers 
has recently been made, namely, that the 
very best catalogues of stars cannot be de- 
pended upon, in some instances, even to 
half a minute, for stars of a small magni- 
tude. This is supposed to have arisen from 
the use of two instruments in determining 
transits and altitudes, whereby faint stars 
have been frequently mistaken for each 
other, when their distance has been com- 
paratively inconsiderable. A re-examina- 
tion of the heavens must now take place, 
arid to obviate similar errors for the future, 
it appears that a transit telescope with a 
. deelination circle attached, is the only in- 
strument upon which reliance can be placed. 
Transparency of the Ocean.— During the 
French voyage of discovery performed by 
the Coquille, experiments were regularly 
made for the purpose of determining to 
what depth it is possible to see, where the 
bottom is of a decidedly white tint: it was 
in some degree\a measure of the transpa- 
rency of the water. The apparatus em- 
ployed was composed of a plank two feet 
in’ diameter, painted white, and having 
weights attached in such a manner, that in 
descending in the water it would remain 
horizontal. The results as might be expect- 
ed were very dissimilar. At Offale, in the 
isle of Waigiou, in calm and cloudy weather, 
on the 13th of September the disc appeared 
when it had sunk to 18 metres (59 feet). 
The next day, the 14th, the sky being clear, 
thesame disc was not lost sight of till at 
the depth of 23 metres (75.3 feet). At 
Port Jackson, the 12th and 13th of Febru- 
ary, the plank could never be seen at the 
pice ae more than 12 metres (38.3 feet) 
in dead calm. The mean at New Zealand 
in’ April was a metre less. At the isle of 
Ascension,in January, under favourable cir- 
e extreme Jimits in a series 
~Humming Birds.—Humming birds have 
been described frequently by naturalists as 
of anextremely passionate and vicious dis- 
position, destroying the- most beautiful 
flowers. apparently without the slightest 
cause. A very enterprizing traveller, Mr. 
Waterton, has recently shown that the food 
ofthese minute birds consists of insects, and 
consequently what has hitherto been attri- 
buted to irritability, arises from the natural 
instinct of the bird in pursuit of sustenance. 
_Etymology.—The Chinese word pha, to 
fear or apprehend, is compounded of heart 
-and white. This shows aremarkable coin- 
cidence of thought between two distant 
people, the Chinese and Europeans, who 
seem to haye adopted the same vulgar error 
that a coward’s blood is white. See Shakes- 
pear and our old dramatic writers passim. 
—Astatic Journal. 
M.M. New Sertes.—Vot. II. No. 7. 
. — 
Botany.—It is remarkable that in an ex- 
tent of more than 4,000 leagues, in the 
whole intertropical zone, from the isle of 
France as far as Otaheite and much further, 
on the islands as well as on the continents, 
the vegetable kingdom presents a great 
number of identical species, while the 
islands of Saint Helena and Ascension, 
also situated under this zone in the Atlan- 
tic ocean, produce species which are pecu- 
liar to them, and which are not found either 
in Brazil or in Africa, in the same latitudes. 
This obseryation was made during the cir- 
cumnayigation of the globe by the French 
vessel Coquille. 
Row’s Coral Bank—A_ communication 
has been made to the Asiatic Journal stat- 
ing that a coral bank, not as yet dangerous 
for large ships, had been discovered by Cap- 
tain Row in the eastern part of the Bay of 
Bengal, in the direct route of ships which 
trade from Bengal to the Straits of Malacca, 
Singapore, and other eastern parts. Its 
latitude is 10° 2’ N. longitude 96° 40' E. 
or thereabout, and it bears west about 75 
miles from the island of St. Andrew. 
Coffee. — The following statement on 
which we shall offer some observations in 
our next number, we submit at present to 
botanical physiologists. jasae 
Raw coffee berries were put into a sauce- 
pan of boiling water and then boiled for five 
or six minutes. No visible effect was pro- 
duced. In about an hour, some of them 
appeared to be germinating. The water 
they were in was then poured off and fresh 
boiling water put to them. Immediately, 
from almost the whole of them a smajl 
white shoot was seen protruding, which 
increased rapidly and visibly to the length 
of from 1-10th to 1-8th of an inch. In one 
or two instances, this little white shoot was 
thrown off entirely, and on examination it 
appeared that the part first protruded was 
the radical, and the other the cotelydons.. 
- Elluminating Apparatus.—F or the purpose 
of rendering distant stations discernible by 
night during the trigonometrical survey 
which is now in progress, Lieutenant Drum- 
mond has constructed an instrument in 
which a globule of quick lime is exposed to 
the flame of alcohol urged by oxygen gas in 
the focus of a parabolic reflector. The lime 
under this treatment, when the experiment 
is made in the most perfect manner, emits 
a light eighty-three times as intense as that 
given out by the brightest part of the flame 
of an Argand lamp; ang this concentrated 
and reflected by the mirror, has enabled the 
officers.employed in the survey to connect 
very distant stations in the night-time in 
the most satisfactory manner. 
Tea.—It appears from the official returns 
to the House of Commons, that the annual 
average consumption of tea for these last ten 
L 
