504 Scienlific Instruction in France. — Bcsearchcs in America. 



limits. — M. Marc-Antoine Parseval presented a memoir en- 

 titled General theorems on analytic functions. 



LI I. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



LECTURES FOR THE MECHANICS AT PARIS. 



lY/T CH. DUPIN finished on Saturday, March 26th, the 

 -'-^-*^» course of lectures on mechanics and geometry which he 

 delivered at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers for the in- 

 struction of the working classes. More than 500 persons, 

 chiefly of these classes, attended his lectures ; and no doubt can 

 be entertained of their utility, for they were listened to with pro- 

 found attention. The progress of Industry will become incal- 

 cuable when she is guided bv Science. — Courier Francois. 



SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE. 



M. Morin, engineer, formerly a pupil in the Polytech- 

 nic School, following the good example of M. Dupin, has be- 

 gun at Nevers a gratuitous course of mechanics and physics ap- 

 plied to the arts. More than thirty persons, already acquainted 

 with arithmetic and the elements of geometry, attend; some of 

 whom have supplied instruments and models of machines, and 

 others have aided the undertaking by subscriptions. At Peri- 

 gueux a public museum of the minerals of the departments 

 has been begun. 



RESEARCHES OF MESSRS. BOUSSINGAULT, RIVERO, AND ROULIN, 

 IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



These enterprising travellers have continued their barome- 

 tric levelling of the Cordilleras, between Merida, the emerald 

 mines of Muzo, and Bogota : tliey have observed the horary 

 variations of the barometer on the coast, and at the height 

 of 8530 feet: they have analysed an aerohte weighing 1600 

 pounds, found on the ridge of the Andes : the pigment of Big- 

 noina chica, which, similar to indigo, presents liowever a pe- 

 culiar vegetable principle : the hot springs of Mariara, from 

 which very pure azotic gas is disengaged : the milk of the 

 cow-tree, which is nutritive, and contains fibrin and wax; the 

 poisonous and extremely irritating principle of the juice of 

 Stura crepitans J and finally the confusedly crystallized saline 

 substances which the Indians obtain from the alpine lake of 

 the Andes of Merida, called Laguna del Urao. Messrs. 

 llivero and Boussingault found the Urao to be coniposed of 

 0"39 of carbonic acid, 0"41 of soda, and 0"19 of water: it is 



a mixture 



