74 French Prize Memoirs. — Travellers iji Africa. 



from zero to 200" of the centigrade ; 2d. The law of cooling in 

 vacuo ; 3d. The laws of cooling in the airj hydrogen gas and 

 carbonic acid gas, at different degrees of temperature and for 

 different states of rarefaction. 



The prize will be a gold medal 3000 francs in A'aliie. 



Another medal, of the same value, is offered for the solution of 

 the following pheenomenon : 



" Fruits acquire new properties in attaining maturity, even 

 when they are taken from tlic tree : they afterwards pass spee- 

 dilv into another state, and yet we are still unacquainted with the 

 changes in their composition, and the causes which produce them." 



The Class is desirous of ascertaining, therefore, " the chemi- 

 cal changes which fruits undergo during their ripening and be- 

 yond that term. With this view, it will be necessary to examine 

 with care the influence of the atmosphere surrounding the fruits, 

 and the alterations which they receive from it. The observa- 

 tions may be confined to some fruits of different species, providing 

 the consequences drawn be sufficiently general." 



The ])apers on the above subjects must be given in before the 

 17th of October 1816, and the prizes will be awarded in Janu- 

 ary 1817. 



TRAVELLERS IN AFRICA. 



Extract of a Letter from the Cape of Good Hope, dated the 

 26tlL of April last. 



*' I have the satisfaction of announcing to you the safe return 

 to this place of that very extraordinary young man, Mr. William 

 Burchelly after an absence of more than six years, traversing 

 and exploring the extreme parts of South Africa. The dangers 

 and privations he has thus voluntarily endured to gratify his 

 thirst after knowledge, far surpass all I have ever met with 

 in the history of other travellers for similar purposes. The joy- 

 ful and interesting reccj)tion he met with from his old friends 

 and acquaintances at the Cape, who went out to meet iiim, and 

 who had several times given him up as lost, was most gratifying 

 to his feelings, and must also afford great consolatiovi to his re- 

 latives and friends in England. He has brought home with him an 

 immense collection of the natural productions of that heretofore 

 unexplored country, particularly birds ; and as there are in an 

 eminent degree combined in this man the philosopher, the bo- 

 tanist, the artist, and the scholar, the public may fairly calculate 

 upon receiving, on his return, information of the most valuable 

 and interesting; description. I understand he is preparing to 

 sail with the first ship ; he may therefore be expected in Eng- 

 land about the latter end of August," 



Erratum, 



