1823.] Scientific Intelligence. 315 



sent, I take this mode of calling attention to the subject, since some 

 who would be likely to pursue it might be discouraged by Dr. Silliman's 

 statement of the inefficacy of the common battery. 



The subject is curious and highly interesting, since it involves the 

 following questions: 



Is the charcoal fused ? 



Is it vaporized? 



Is it transferred from the one pole to the other, and, if so, in what 

 manner ? 



Would not satisfactory answers to these questions throw much light 

 on many abstruse points, and especially on that most difficult question 

 in physics, the relation of radiant, or empyreal, or imponderable bodies 

 to ordinary matter? William West. 



IX. On a Mineralogical Work of A<rricda, Sfc. By G. Cumberland, Esq. 



Hon. Mem. GS. 



(To the Editor of the Annals of Philosophy .) 



SIR, Bristol, Dec. 9, 1823. 



Your correspondent, Mr. Conybeare, at p. 366 of the Annals for 

 Nov. 1322, in his analysis of the work of Vannoccio Biringuecio, asks 

 from what work of Georgio Agricola he relates " the discovery of a 

 mass of silver ore, in one of the Saxon mines, sufficiently large to make 

 a table and a seat, or stool (tripode).''" In return for the satisfaction 

 his paper has afforded me, I have the pleasure to inform him that 

 Vannoccio found it in a dialogue, entitled " II Bermanno," in compli- 

 ment to his friend Bermanno, the physician; placed at the end of 

 Agricola's treatise " On the Generation of Things underground, with 

 their Nature and the Nature of Fossils;" the other interlocutors being 

 Nicola Ancone and Giovanni Nevio. In this dialogue we have a very 

 minute account and history of the mines near Friberg, in Bohemia, 

 one of the richest in silver of which, was, according to his statement, 

 that called Georges, from St. George (as may be seen leaf 404, for the 

 book is so paged). At leaf 446, on the blank side, Bermanno states, 

 that pure masses of silver are only found in Bohemia. 



InSneberg, in a mine calledGeorgio, more is found, he observes, than 

 in all the other mines in German)', for (as he has heard) there was once 

 so large a mass extracted, that Duke Albert of Saxony, who, above all 

 other princes of Germany, excelled in glory, arms, and wealth, and who 

 was the father of that Georgio who now is the sovereign Prince, having 

 slopped to see the mines, and called for some refreshment, made use 

 of that great mass of silver for his table, and those who attended him, 

 and had likewise dismounted ; and during his repast, he observed, 

 " the Emperor Frederick is powerful and rich, but he cannot sit down 

 to-day at such a table as this!" These, says he, were the words of 

 the Duke Albert, astonished greatly at this prodigious mass of pure 

 silver ; " but I was more astonished," continues Bermanno, " when in 

 Sneberg I heard a calculation of the amount of silver it had produced." 

 To which Nevio replies, " You tell us things very uncommon ; pray 

 what might that mass weifdi ? " and Barmanno answers, " A little 

 more than (\ mi peso) ten thousand pounds. 



This dialogue consists of forty-seven leaves, the first of which is 

 numbered 5'20, instead of 420, is really very interesting, and is 



