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XXXI. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 
ON THE CORRELATION OF PHYSICAL, CHEMICAL, AND VITAL 
FORCE. 
To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine. 
GENTLEMEN, 
N reference to the very interesting paper of Professor Le Conte’s, 
published in the February Number of the Philosophical Magazine 
(on the Correlation of Physical, Chemical, and Vital Force), may I 
take the liberty of calling your attention to the fact that a view in 
many respects similar to his has been argued in a paper “ On the 
Theory of Inflammation,” contributed by me to the British and 
Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review for July 1858 ? 
Two or three sentences from that paper will sufficiently exhibit 
the pointsof agreement. After a reference to the partialdecomposition 
in the egg and the seed, which is a condition of their development, 
and to other instances, these words follow :—‘‘ Such facts as these 
justify us in placing decomposition in organic tissues among the 
circumstances which give rise to the organizing process.” —P. 215. 
At p. 222 is the following sentence :—‘‘ As a formative or vital pro- 
cess, dependent on a decomposing or chemical one, it [inflammation] 
corresponds to the clearest conception of nutrition that we can gather 
from the phznomena of life in all its forms.”’ 
It is a great satisfaction to me to see views to which I had been 
led, so much more ably and fully exhibited by an independent writer. 
I am, Gentlemen, 
Your obedient Servant, 
James HinTon. 
London, February 1860. 
ON THE CONDUCTIBILITY OF CERTAIN ALLOYS FOR HEAT AND 
ELECTRICITY. BY G. WIEDEMANN. 
In an experimental investigation, Wiedemann and Franz* found 
that the thermal and electrical conductibility of metals was nearly 
identical. Their researches also showed that in brass (which con- 
tains 1 part of zinc to 2 of copper) the thermal conductibility differs 
but very little from that of the worse conducting metal, zinc, although 
the latter is present in smallest quantity. In other alloys, as those 
of tin and lead, an analogous relation prevails in reference to the 
electric conductibility. Messrs. Calvert and Johnson have lately 
investigated the thermal conductibility of several alloys, and have 
arrived at results which differ materially from those of Wiedemann 
and Franz, and which render doubtful the analogy which had been 
* Phil. Mag. [4] vol. vii. p. 33; vol. x. p. 393. 
