Review of M. ^'m6 on a New Method of Making Magnets. 185 



and powerful compression of the air before theni, and thus extricate a 

 quantity of heat sufficient to produce in them an intense ignition, and if 

 tiiey were combustible, to set them on fire. 



Many of these meteors seem to have been of large size, and some of 

 them to have descended to within a very short distance from the earth's 

 surface, even if they did not actually reach it. They seem to have been 

 composed for the most part of light combustible materials easily therefore 

 dissipated in the intense heat which they extricated, and which must have 

 been much hotter than that of the hottest furnace. Had such not been 

 the case, or had their quantity of matter been considerable, they could 

 scarcely have failed to reach the surface of the earth, and to have produced 

 the most disastrous consequences. These large bodies were stopped in 

 the atmosphere only by transferring their motion to columns of air, large 

 volumes of which would thus be suddenly displaced, which together with 

 the descent of cold air from the upper regions, would account for those 

 changes of temperature and of the seasons, which followed, as well as for 

 the violent gales by which the equilibrium was restored. 



It is inferred that the nature of the meteors was the same with that of 

 the light nel)ulous matter which composes the tails of comets. 



To account for the production of the body which afforded the meteors, 

 no satisfactory hypothesis seems to have been constructed ; but with 

 respect to its direction and place, it is inferred, upon data which it would 

 exceed our limits to introduce, 1. That the body , which afforded the meteors, 

 was pursuing its way along with the earth round the sun. 2. That the body 

 revolves around the sun in an elliptical orbit, but little inclined to the plane 

 of the ecliptic, and having its aphelion near the orbit of the earth. 3. That 

 the body has a period of nearly six months, and its perihelion a little below 

 the orbit of Mercury. 



The substance of the above paper, together with the reasoning on which 

 the conclusions are founded, will be found in one of the most valuable peri- 

 odicals of the present day. The American, or Silliman's Journal of Science. 



M. Aim^ on a New Method of Making Magnets, 



Tub appearance of a new number of Les Annales de Chimie et de 

 Physique, enables us to bring forward an interesting note by M. Aime, 

 upon a subject towards which the discoveries of Dr. Faraday and others, 

 have directed a share of public attention in this country. 



Such of our readers as are at all conversant with the phaenomena of 

 electro-magnetism, arc probably aware, that the chemical decompositions 

 and recompositions effected by the voltaic pile, may be effected also by a 

 proper magnetic apparatus : but such an apparatus, although easier of 

 application than that of Volta, requires powerful magnets, and as these are 

 difficult to be procured, has been but seldom employed. It is to obviate 



