160 Miscellanies. 
10. Mechanies’ Magazine and Journal of public internal improve- 
ment.—This useful and commendable work is published by Mr. 
Samuel N. Dickinson of Boston, and the first volume containing 
384 pages 8vo. is just finished. It is neatly printed on a good pa- 
per, and is furnished with good figures, chiefly from wood, for the 
various subjects which require that species of illustration. _ 
Dr. Jones has for several years conducted, very successfully, the 
Franklin Journal, published at Philadelphia’; and New York, has at 
times, been furnished with a Mechanics’ Magazine, but we do not re- 
collect that a similar attempt has been made in Boston before the 
present. 
On looking through the pages of the Boston Journal, we find that 
they contain much valuable matter both original and selected, and 
that the Magazine is both an instructive and attractive work. ‘The 
editor has honored the American Journal by occasional selections, 
and we are happy if any thing in our pages may be esteemed sufli- 
ciently valuable to obtain in this way a wider circulation, and an op- 
portunity of effecting more good. We regret to learn that Mr. 
Dickinson’s patronage is not at present sufficiently extensive to meet 
his inevitable expenses, but we trust that a second year will remedy 
this difficulty, and that Boston will not permit its Mechanic’s Maga- 
zine to languish for want of adequate patronage. 
11. Asbestos impregnated with platinum.—I find that if asbestos 
or charcoal be soaked under an exhausted receiver in muriate of ple 
tinum, then dried in an evaporating oven for twenty fours hours am 
afterwards ignited, the property of ignition in the gaseous elements 
of water is acquired.—F'rom a letter of Dr. Hare. 
12. A new 8vo. monthly Journal, called Tae AmERIcAN Bo- 
TANIcAL Reaisrer, is announced for publication at the city of Wash- 
ington ; it will contain the description, specific character, culture, 
history, and application in the arts, of the plants exclusively indigen™ 
ous to America; together with the systematic and common hea 
nyms, the scientific names accentuated, and their etymology explain 
ed. The whole arranged according to the Linnean system, and the 
natural orders of Linneus and Jussieu, with references to ai 
and the standard authorities, for the description of each individual 
plant. 
ee ee ae ee a OO EE EE 
