Bet 
if 
Miscella nies . 383 
ing them. M. Turpen has discovered, in the cellular tissue of an 
old trunk of the Cereus Peruvianus, in the Garden of Plants of Paris, 
where it has been growing one hundred and thirty years, an im- 
mense quantity of agglomerations of oxalate of lime. They are 
found in the cellular tissue of the pith and bark. They are white, 
transparent, foursided sae with pyramidal terminations, collected 
in in radiant nai 
CHEMISTRY. 
sk ee the development of Azotic gas. in Warm Springs, by 
C. Daubeny, M. D. F. R. S. Prof. of Chemistry in the University 
of Oxford.—In a memoir read by Prof. Daubeny, on the 30th Nov. 
1830, before the Natural History Society of Geneva, of which he is 
an honorary member, he adduces the fact of the —— of 
azotic gas from thermal springs, as tending to support t ry of 
voleanic action to which he gave the preference in his work on vol- 
tanoes, published in 1820. .This is the theory of Sir Humphry 
Davy, which ascribes volcanic force to the disengagement of vapors, 
consequent upon the infiltration of water, through “the crust of the 
earth upon the metallic bases of the alkalies and earths. , 
A more simple view of the causes of this phenomena, arises hain 
the belief now entertained, that the interior of the earth is in a state 
of i Incandescence, and that the contact of water with this ignited 
mass, whatever may be its nian must necessarily occasion con- 
Cussive or explosive forces. , 
~ Prof. ‘Daubeny has examined various hot springs in the region of 
the Alps, and he cites the authority of other good chemists to prove 
that those of the Pyrenees, as well as the thermal waters of some 
_ other countries, discharge azotic gas, mixed in some cases with car- 
bonic acid, and occasionally a small quantity of oxygen. 
“This copious discharge of azote he considers as the result of that 
chemical action in the interior of the globe, which gives rise to the 
increased temperature of these waters. 
The entire nature of these changes, is undoubtedly covered with 
an impenetrable veil, but the author thinks that the disengagement of 
azote cannot be referred to the single access of water to any incan- 
descent substance,—but that it would be the consequence of a com- 
bustion, which, though proceeding from the infiltration of water, may 
maintained ‘by means of atmospheric air.—Bib. Univ. Dec. 1830. 
=. h 
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