Dr. Cutbush on the Formation of Cyanogene, &c. 149 
ginal, would not be a sufficient apology for publishing what 
was published before, were it not, that more than half which 
have written, and which cannot well be ey te from the 
rest, is not to be found in the writings of La Place. As Mr. 
wditch, from such an examination as the time permitted, 
judged La Place’s and my own theory to be in substance the 
same, and as in some of their principal “euwaaea 3 they are 
soin reality, i itseems proper to point out where the 
Place’s mode of explaining the sources of motionin es system, 
is almost entirely dissimilar. So far is he from showing or 
even supposing them at all regular in their operation, the 
tenor of his remark evinces, that he considered them other- 
wise ; he has asserted that the planets would move in the 
same direction on their axes as in their orbits; but his illus- 
tration is totally distinct and diverse from mine. The condi- 
tions which he has assumed might take place in cases where 
the condensation of the primary wheel was extremely rapid: 
in cases of slower condensation my own must be substitu- 
ted. To the two distinct series of planets; to the regular 
course of their eccentricity ; to the causes of their relative 
difference in density; to the causes of their relative degrees 
of diurnal velocity; to the causes of the obliquity and ec- 
centricity of the orbits of the asteroids ; to the cause of the 
depression about Saturn’s equator; and to the cause of the 
regular parallel drrangement of the stellar strata, and the 
plansibiliey, or perhaps “probability of an eternally progressive 
t 
ormation into worlds, as well as a variety of Jess importan 
partiealrs he has in no bene alluded. ~ 
igh respect, 
Your obedient servant, 
ISAAC ORR. 
Hartford, Nov. Sth, 1822. 
~ 
Ane. VIIl.—On the formation aay cyanogene or prussine, in 
some chemical processes not heretofore noticed: by James 
Cursusn, A. 5S. U.S. A. Acting Professor of Chemistry 
Poise Mineralogy, in the U.S. Military ery at West 
In 1815, Gay Lussac, the able experimental associate of 
Thenard, discovered the gaseou 
which, from its constituent parts, Is ; also called carburet of 
¢ 
