Miscellanies. 197 
11. Storms.—It appears from the following notice that the mode of 
investigation by which Mr. Redfield has developed the true charac- 
ter of American storms, has been adopted with success by the me- 
teorologists of Europe. 
Meteorological Society, Dec. 13.—Dr. Birkbeck, President, in 
the chair. Several highly interesting communications were read on 
the tremendous gale that visited this island on the 29th of November 
last. The most important were from the Rev. W. B. Clarke, of 
Poole, Captain W. H. Smyth, R. N., of the Observatory, Bedford, 
the Rev. W. T. Bree, of Allersley Rectory, near Coventry, Mr. W. 
H. Campbell, Secretary to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, and 
Mr. S. G. Tatem, of High Wycombe. 
From the manner in which the wind was observed to change its 
direction at various places during the gale, it was considered to belong 
to that class of hurricanes which traverse the western Atlantic. 
These hurricanes consist of a large body of air moving with conside- 
rable velocity round an axis which advances in such a direction as 
to describe an elliptic or parabolic curve, the apex of the curve being 
situated about the parallel of the thirtieth degree of north latitude. 
It was requested, that on future occasions observers would be careful 
to note particularly the phases of the storms, and the time when any 
change in the direction of the wind takes place.—Loudon’s Maga- 
zine of Nat. Hist., January, 1837. 
12. Galvanism.—Dr. Charles G. Page, of Salem, Mass., has 
lately made the valuable discovery that iron, lead, or any metal, may 
be substituted for the expensive article of copper in galvanic batte- 
ries, whereby the cost of this apparatus will be diminished by about 
one half. In order that a battery of this construction should equal 
one of copper and zinc, it is necessary that the exciting liquid should 
be some acid, holding the oxide of copper in solution, such as the 
nitrate or sulphate of copper. A solution of blue vitriol or the sul- 
phate of copper, is preferable from its cheapness. A small plate of 
lead and zinc, each the size of a cent, immersed in a wine glass of 
the above solution, will give bright sparks, strong shocks, and produce 
decompositions when ceassoated with a spiral coil of copper ribbon 
three hundred and twenty feet long, which is, for convenience, now 
generally called a dynamic multiplier. The superior action of such 
batteries appears to be owing to the greater readiness with which 
copper deposits upon another metal than itself. He has further found 
