458 Miscellaneous Intelligenct 



GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY. 

 Dr Siebold, of whose labours and collections relative to Japanese litem 

 ture we had occasion to speak in a late number, has unfortunately excited 

 the suspicions of the Japanese government. He had obtained from the 

 astronomer of Jedda, (the capital of Japan,) a set of maps of the empire. 

 The magistrates of Wangasaki, one of the five imperial cities, caused him to 

 be arrested, and the maps to be taken from him ; his papers were also 

 seized and examined. In other respects he has been treated with great 

 lenity, and it is now hoped that he will shortly be liberated, and allowed to 

 return to Europe. The Dutch are the only Europeans whom the Japanese 

 admit to trade with them, and it was in the capacity of physician to the 

 Dutch factory that Dr. Siebold had been allowed to enter Japan. 



Pyrenees.— fly an arrangement opposite to that which is observed in all 

 other great chains, the flanks of the mountains present very few shells: it is 

 only the summits which abound with the debris of organized bodies, and 

 hence numerous objections had been drawn against the laws which Pallas 

 and Saussure had recognized in the structure of mountains. M. Ramond 

 found, indeed, calcareous beds of shells dipping to the south, and in an ulte- 

 rior survey he discovered the schists and the granites which run beneath the 

 cilcareous strata Returning farther to the north he saw these schists and 

 g ..mites arranged in parrallel lines, but inferior to the great crest. Farther 

 north still he again found the calcareous strata resting in parallel lines on 

 the granites ami schists; but these last lines were the least elevated of all. 

 Henceforth order was, in his opinion, again established. The granite forms, 

 as every where else, the axis of the chaiu ; but there is a singular inequality 

 of level between the collateral crests of the north and those of the south ; 

 and upon the latter we meet in ascending the same scries of beds which on 

 the other we follow in descending. Moni-Perdu is the first of calcareous 

 mountains, as Mont-Blanc is the first of granite mountains, and, though 

 less elevated, it does not yield to Mont-Blanc cither in the aspect of the 

 ruins which surround it, or in all the imposing spectacles which characterize 

 the most terrible revolutions. " We seek even in vain," says M. Ramond, 

 " in the granite mountains, for those simple and impressive forms, those 

 large beds which stretch out into walls, which bend into amphitheatres, 

 which form themselves into terraces, and shoot up into turrets where the 

 hands of giants seem to have applied the line and the plummet." 



Mr. Faraday on the flowing of Sand under pressure.— This was an ex- 

 perimental account of the very curious experiments made by M. Huber 

 Burnant, on the intermediate properties which, sand exhibited between those 

 of solid and fluid bodies. Sand prepared so as to be uniform and free from 

 dust, will flow in the air at angles above 30 or 32 degrees, but not at smaller 

 angles. Sand put into a box or reservoir, and allowed to flow out at an 

 aperture, either in the bottom or side, amounts to the same quantity passed, 

 whatever the height may be, or whatever the pressure there exerted, being 

 in this respect quite unlike fluid; so that perhaps it may be made to con- 

 stitute a moving force probably more independent of deranging causes than 

 any other which can be devised. When a perpendicular tube is filled with 

 sand, very little of the weight of the sand is supported by the bottom, 

 iuit nearly the whole is supported by the sides. If a tube, an inch in di- 

 ameter, be filled for about six inches, or more, with sand, and laid horizon- 

 tally, all attempts to push the sand out the tube by a stick of nearly the 

 diameter, will fail. These and many more curious facts, with their general 

 principles and applications, were explained and illustrated. 



ffekcrgs— The journals of the ships of the East India Company, during 

 the whole of the last century, contain no accounts of icebergs having been 

 seen in the course of fheir navigation in the southern hemisphere, although 

 several of these ships proceeded into the parallels of latitude 40°, 41°, and 

 ■i\!°. But, during (he lasi two years, it appears that icehergs have occasion- 

 ally been met with by several ships in their passage, very near the Cape ol 

 ( iood Hope, between the latitudes of 36° and 39". The particulars relating 

 to these observations are detailed in the paper. The most remarkable 

 K .uned in the voyage of the brig Eliza from Antwerp, hound to Batat i.i. 



