1814.] Scientific Intellisence. 15$ 



into a white transparent glass. With borax, it meUs easily into a 

 glassy bead. It dissolves, liivewise, in soda, but with more diffi- 

 culty. It does not etfervesce with acids. It dissolves imperfectly 

 in muriatic and nitric acids; and with the last acid it forms a jelly. 



V. Variation of the Maajiet. ^ 



M. Huth found the declination of the needle at KharkofT, in 

 Russia, 5° 4' west, and its inclination, or dip, 66° 15', iu the year 

 1809. 



VI. Origin of the North American Indians. 



M. Julius Von Klaproth has made a curious discovery respecting 

 the American Indians. He has found a long chain of nations and 

 idioms extending from the canal of Queen Charlotte along the 

 porth-west coast of America, to Southern Canada, the United 

 States of America, Louisiana, Florida, the Great and Little An- 

 tilles, the Caribee islands, and Guiana, as far as the river of the 

 Amazons, where the languages and idioms are all obviously de- 

 rived from an original language, which has a great deal of affinity 

 with that of the Samojedes and Kamptchadales. The people all 

 along this vast track, both in their figure and mode of life, have a 

 striking similarity to the free nations in INorthern Asia, Mr. 

 Klaproth gives a list of Caribee words which occur in the languages 

 of the Mandshou, the Samojedes, the Korgacks, the Youkaguirs, 

 the Toungouses, the Kamtchadales, the Tchouktchis, &c. 



VII. Substitute for Tea. 



The inhabitants of the government of Irkoutsk, in Russia, are in 

 the habit of drinking a tea which they prepare from the leaves of 

 tlie following plants : — Saxifraga crassit'olia, pyrola rotundifolia, 

 clematis alba, pyrola uniflora, prunus padus, spiraea coronata, 

 ulmus campestris, polypodium fragrans, rosa canina. Of these tlie 

 pyrola rotundifolia, {winter green,) prunus padus, {bird cherry,) 

 ulmus campestris, {common elm,) and rosa canina, {common dog 

 rose,) are natives of Great Britain. The last two indeed are abun- 

 dant all over the island. 



Vlir. Miaszite. 



Dr. Wuttig, Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy at the 

 Russian University of Kazan, has announced the discovery of a 

 new mineral, to which he has given the name of mias^zite. Ac- 

 cording to his statement, it is a compound of carbonate of strontian 

 and carbonate of lime. If Stromeycr's discovery, that arragonlte is 

 composed of these two carbonates, be verified, this Russian mineral 

 ought to be a variety of arragonite, or, at least, connected with it. 



IX. Gum in Lichens. 



Kirchhoff has subjected the lichen esculentus, and lichen corol- 

 loidcs, to a chemical examination, in order to jctcrmuie the pro- 



