174 Miscellanies. 
Five of these titles were the rewards of members of the medical 
profession, and one only, that of Sir H. Davy, could be attributed ex- 
clusively to science.—Edinburgh Journal of Science, July; 1830. 
2. Necrology.—The president of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, 
announced at the session of May 17, the loss which they had just sus- 
tained in the death of M. Fourier, perpetual secretary for the math- 
ematical sciences, and one of the most illustrious sgavans of the age. 
The committee appointed at the succeeding session to nominate 
suitable persons to fill the important station thus left vacant, presented 
on the 3ist of May. MM. Arago, Puissant, and Becquerel, and ata 
subsequent meeting, Arago was, by a large majority, elected perpetual 
secretary, in the room of his deceased colleague.—Rev. Encyc. 
3. State of Education in the City of Lyons.—In the course of an 
extensive journey through the South of France, in the autumn of 
1828, the benevolent savant Ch. Dupin, visited Lyons, and has fur- 
nished the Revue Encyclopedique with an interesting memoir on the 
commercial and moral condition of that city. From a censms annu- 
ally taken of the number of young men who arrive at the age of twen- 
ty, it appears that in 1827, the number of that class amounted to 839 
in the city of Lyons: of these 285 knew how to read and write; 329 
knew only how to read; 221 knew nothing. In the rest of the de- 
partment of the Rhone, of 1919 young persons examined, 787 knew 
how to read and write; 139 knew only how to read; 993 could nei- 
ther read nor write. The memoir farther observes, 
At Lyons, more than a fourth part of the young people can neither 
read nor write. At Lyons, less than a third of the young people ri 
write. At Lyons, more young persons are interrupted in the midst of 
a course of primary instruction, than are left to finish it; in other 
words, more than half the parents who send their children to the 
schools, gratuitous or otherwise, withdraw them as soon as they have 
learned to read, and without waiting until they can write. 
They only means of remedying this evil, is to render primary 
struction so rapid, as to teach the children reading and writing ™ 
the time now devoted to reading only, by the old and difficult meth- 
od which they still pursue.—Rev. Encyc. Avril, 1829. 
in- 
4. Rail Roads in Austria.—Within five years, three rail roads 
{chemins en fer) have been constructed in Austria by private compa- 
nies. The longest is that from the river Moldau, in Bohemia, 0? the 
confines of Bavaria, to the Danube. Its length already exceeds 
13,400 cordes; the corde being equal to six German feet. Th 
building of several chain bridges is also under consideration- Indus- 
