4S4 Expefiments and Researches 



tion, even on the supposition that it pleases Heaven to pre- 

 serve me in health and vigour, cannot yet be determined. As, 

 however, it is desirable that it should not be very long delayed, 

 I rejoice to have found Professor Struve of Dorpat, and Dr. 

 Walbeck of Abo, willing to undertake a part of the labour, 

 as soon as they are in possession of the requisite means. Other 

 fellow labourers, provided with equally good and powerful 

 meridian circles, will be very desirable; and I am ready to 

 make the necessary arrangement concerning the choice of a 

 region of the heavens. At a time when an Astronomical So- 

 ciety has been instituted, whose principal object is a minute 

 investigation of the heavens, I think that the hope of seeing 

 this plan reahzed in its fullest extent cannot be deemed alto- 

 gether extravagant. « 



[Professor Bessel has subjoined to this valuable paper a 

 copious list of the stars already observed by him ; but which 

 we are obliged to omit for want of room. The appeal which 

 is made, in the last sentence, to the Astronomical Society of 

 London, we hope will not be made in vain. — Edit.] 



LXXXVIII. Some Experimetits and Researches on the Saline 

 Contents of Sea-Water, undertaken mth a view to correct afid 

 iinpi'ove its Chemical Analysis. By Alexander Marcet, 

 M.D. F.R.S. Honorary Professor of Chemistry at Geneva*. 



J.N a paper on the temperature and saltness of various seas, 

 which the Royal Society did me the honour to publish in their 

 Transactions for the year 1819, I threw out a conjecture, 

 that the sea might contain minute quantities of every substance 

 in nature, which is soluble in water. For the ocean having 

 communication with every part of the earth through the rivers, 

 all of which ultimately pour their waters into it ; and soluble 

 substances, even such as are theoretically incompatible with 

 each other, being almost in every instance capable of co-exist- 

 ing in solution, provided the quantities be very minute, I could 

 see no reason why the ocean should not be a general recep- 

 tacle of all bodies which can be held in solution. And al- 

 though it will appear from the following account, that I have 

 been unsuccessful in some of my attempts to prove the truth 

 of this conjecture, it may fairly be ascribed either to a want 

 of sufficient accuracy in our present methods of chemical ana- 

 lysis, or of the requisite degree of skill in the operator. 



• From the Trensactioni of the Philosophical Society, Part I. for 1822. 



SojTie 



