French Society for Encouragement of National Industry. 229 
St. George by Captain Hodgson, is estimated to be 22,240 feet 
above the surface of the sea. 
Captain Hodgson, in his account of the course of the river 
Jumna, observes, that at Jumnoutri the snow which covers and 
conceals the stream is about 60 yards wide, and is bounded on 
the right and left by precipices of granite ; it is 40} feet thick, 
and has fallen from the precipices above. He was able to mea- 
sure the thickness of the hed of: snow over the stream very accu- 
rately by means of a plumb-line let down through one of the holes 
in it, which are caused by the steam of a great number of boil- 
ing springs at the border of the Jumna, the thickness 40 feet 54 
inches. The head of the Jumna is on the s.w. side of the grand 
Himalaya ridge, differing from the Ganges inasmuch as that 
river has the upper part of its course within the Himalaya, flow- 
ing from the south of east to the north of west, and it is only from 
Sookie when it pierces through the Himalaya that it assumes a 
course of about south 20 west. The mean latitude of the hot 
springs of Jumnoutri appears to be 30,58. Captain Hodgson 
made his observation April 21, 1817. 
SOCIETY FOR ENCOURAGEMENT OF NATIONAL INDUSTRY 
(IN FRANCE). 
This Society has proposed a prize of 3000 francs (125d. En- 
glish) for the discovery of a metal or composition of moderate 
price, which shall not be hurtful to animal ceconomy, nor oxi- 
dizable either by water or by the juice of vegetables, or which 
shall at least be greatly less so than iron and steel, without im- 
parting any colour or taste to the substances in the preparation 
of which it is employed. 
This metal or composition must possess hardness and tenacity 
enough to serve for crotchets, for solid files, for instruments to 
mash, cut, separate and divide pears, apples, beet-root, potatoes, 
and other vegetable productions in common domestic use. 
The Society requires that the inventors shal] reveal the nature 
of the metals which they employ in the case of composition; and 
that specimens of each of these, along with a model of some 
known machine by which the necessary experiments for deter- 
mining the goodness of the principal component parts may be 
maile,shall be deposited with the Society. 
The memoirs, specimens, &c. to be lodged with the Society 
before the Ist of March 1821; the prize to be decreed July 
1821. 
In order to assist the researches of persons desirous of compe- 
ting for the prize, the Society have added the following observa- 
tions : 
P3 The 
