Miscellanies. 195 
8. Fire Bricks——Mr. Isaac Doolittle, superintendant of Iron 
Works at Bennington, Vermont, has, from materials found in that 
vicinity, manufactured fire bricks, which have stood a blast of five 
months, and being recently examined *ppearet so little worn that the 
furnace has again been put in blast. 
This discovery appears of serious importance. We have seen 
specimens of the sand, which is purely siliceous—of the clay, which 
is of the porcelain family, and of the brick and a crucible made from 
these materials, all of which appear to be excellent. 
In the furnaces they substitute blocks and bricks formed of these 
materials for fire stones in the construction of hearths, and of tymps 
for blast furnaces. Heretofore hearth-stones have been obtained 
from Stafford, Connecticut, but these materials appear preferable to 
either for durability and cheapness. 
9. Supposed Volcano at Sea.—An intelligent shipmaster writes 
from the coast of California, that on his passage out ‘on Thursday, 
April 9, 1835, in Jat. 7° N. lon. 99° W. we observed some little things 
floating by the ship, which on examination proved to be small stones, 
resembling pumice stone. From their appearance I should suppose 
they were of volcanic origin. We sailed upwards of fifty miles 
through them, thinly scattered over the surface of the sea. We were 
about five hundred and forty miles from the continent, six hundred 
from the Gallipagos, and six hundred from Clipperton Rock. The 
northeast trade winds prevail in these latitudes. I can form no satis- 
factory opinion whence they came, excepting from some volcanic 
eruption at the bottom of the ocean. As I send you specimens, you 
can forward part of them to Prof. Silliman.* 
‘‘'The meteoric shower in November, 1834, was seen in Califor 
nia.” —Boston Daily Advertiser. 
Volcano at Sea.—We copied into the last Gazette, from the Bos- 
ton Daily Advertiser, an account of a shipmaster sailing many miles 
along the coast of California, ae floating bodies of small light 
* These specimens, forwarded to us by some unknown friend, are decidedly 
pumice stone, hardly ee ae — those of the Lipari Islands. Color 
light gray—structure, serene and fibrous, or filamentous—float on fresh water, 
with half their volume out at first, until 2 grow heavier by absorption. They 
peer the polish of $lass, and appear to have been some time afloat, as they are 
rn by fri si on: they havea distinctly saline taste. They were - 
onsiderably w: 
=n doubtally the ejections of a voleano.—Ep. 
