Miscellanies. 377 



The execution of a great project of drainage is at present de- 

 pending on the determination of the states, now in session. 



There has been discovered, a league from Freyberg, a bed of al- 

 luvium of rutile or titanic oxide, so abundant that preparations are 

 making to obtain it by washing, (Seisenwerck.) It is intended to 

 employ this titanium in the dyeing of cotton fabrics. 



There is now obtained, near Schwarzemberg, very fine emery, 

 (corundum,) the quality of which is as good as that of Naxos. It 

 is now worked to a considerable extent. 



Note on the Emery of Saxony. — The emery of Ochsenkopf and 

 Morgenleithe, near Schwarzemberg, is found in grains, or small, 

 bluish, kidney-form agglomerations, mixed with blende and other 

 minerals, in a yellowish, talcose or jade rock, constituting a bank in 

 a stratum of micaceous schist passing into slate. Formerly this rock 

 was employed in mending roads; in 1714, it was found to be useful 

 in sawing and polishing hard stones. — Idem. 



3. Water spout on the Lake of Geneva. — M. Mayor, who resides 

 Molard place, Geneva, in looking through his window, which faces 

 the lake, saw, to his astonishment, on the 3rd of December last, 



* 



about a quarter before eight in the morning, in the direction of Pd- 

 quis and Secheron, a vertical column of water, at least sixty or eighty 

 feet high, and several feet in diameter, larger at its base than its 

 summit, of a grey color and appearing animated with a gyratory 

 motion. The column rested on the lake below, and was bent towards 

 the top in the form of a bow. It remained nearly two minutes with- 

 out any sensible change of place ; and then sunk, by degrees, from 

 above by diffusing itself in a shower of rain. At this juncture a 

 south west wind ruffled the surface of the lake ; the sky was entirely 

 covered with thick vapors, which occupied the upper regions, while 

 there were, properly speaking, no clouds in the horizon. 



This not the first spout seen on Lake Leman. One, which oc- 

 curred in 1741, was described in the French Academy. It lasted 

 several minutes. Another was seen in 1764, in the month of August 

 which continued nearly an hour. 



In the spout witnessed by M. Mayor, the top of the column had 

 no communication with thick clouds, as is sometimes the case, no 

 trace of any such cloud was to be seen, neither above the column 

 nor in its neighborhood, — hence there were no indications of elec- 

 trical attraction to which the effect could be attributed, and there 



