834 Decisions un Disputed Inventions and Discoveries. 



I propose to distinguish this species by the name of Levyne, 

 in compliment to Mr A. Levy, M. A. of the university of 

 Paris, who is already well known to mineralogists, by his cry- 

 stallographic acquirements, and by his determination of several 

 new and interesting mineral species. 



Art. XXX.— DECISIONS ON DISPUTED INVENTIONS AND 



DISCOVERIES. 



In discharging the duties which the present series of papers has imposed 

 upon us, we are glad to find that the principles we have laid down, as well 

 as our method of applying them, have already obtained the sanction of 

 those whose approbation will always be our highest reward. 



As these pages can never be stained with personal allusions, nor the de- 

 cisions which they bear influenced by any other feelings but those which 

 truth inspires, we are not without the hopes, that the greater number of 

 those whom we may place in the list of second inventors will acknowledge 

 the justness of our sentence, while those who have a less veneration for 

 the even-handedness of justice, will know in time to respect a tribunal to 

 which they themselves may confidently appeal, and before which their 

 own usurped rights may be vindicated. 



To persons of inferior candour, and particularly to selfish plagiarists, 

 we would recommend the perusal.of the first paper in this Number, in 

 which one of our most eminent Philosophers freely renounces to a fo- 

 reigner the merit of discoveries which he had published, and believed to 

 be his own ; and also the communication from Mr Nicholas Mill, in p. 

 338 of this Number, in which he fixes the precise share which he and other 

 philosophers have had in the improvement of the Platina Air Pyrometer. 



1. The Daily Variation nj the Barometer not discovered by Colonel Wright. 



It will doubtless seem strange to our scientific readers, that the disco- 

 very of the daily variation of the barometer should be now, almost for the 

 first time, made a question for discussion. Their wonder, however, will 

 not be diminished, when we inform them, that a grave charge has been 

 brought against the Editor of this work, against Mr Brande, and against 

 Baron de Ferussac, for transferring the honour of this discovery from M. 

 Grodin to Colonel Wright of Ceylon; and when we give them the additional 

 information, that this charge was made by M. Arago, one of the editors of 

 the Annates de Chimie, at the time when he was occupying the President's 

 chair in the Rjyal Academy of Sciences, our readers will see the necessity 

 of repelling a charge, which, had it come from any other quarter, would 

 have received that silent treatment which it merits. 



As the notice which gave rise to this charge appeared originally in our 

 Journal, and was merely copied from its pages into the Quarterly Journal, 

 and into Baron Ferussac's Bulletin, it is necessary that the defence should 



