Miscellanies. 175 



Among other reasons, may be mentioned the fact, that when the 

 British Journals arrive in this country, many of their most valuable 

 articles are selected and published in the daily papers, and we have 

 been for years in the way of seeing extracts thus published here, as 

 interesting foreign matter, which might have been, had the editors 

 known it, given to their readers months before from the pages of the 

 American Journal. Articles, filling whole columns, have been thus 

 unconsciously furnished their readers by our worthy friends of the 

 National Gazette, and other daily prints. 



CHEMISTRY, &C. 



Extracted and translated by Prof. J. Griscom. 



1. Rapid sketch of the present state of Electricity. — Professor 



A. De La Rive has published, in four successive numbers of the 

 Bibliotheque Universelle, for the year past, an able historical view of 

 the principal discoveries made in electricity within the last few years. 

 His memoir concludes with the following Resume. 



In terminating this historical sketch which we have endeavored to 

 render as complete as possible, it will not perhaps be deemed amiss 

 if we present, in a few words, the state in which it leaves the science 



of electricity. 



1st. Two different principles are acknowledged to exist in elec- 

 tricity ; the laws of action to which these principles give rise have 

 been determined, both when they are isolated and at rest, and when 

 they are in motion in order to unite. But the nature of them has 

 not yet been determined : nothing has yet been done but to advance 

 hypotheses which are still unsatisfactory, — such especially as that 

 which regards them as very subtle fluids, endowed with certain dis- 

 tinct properties. It is probable that they are rather, both of them, 

 different modifications of the ethereal matter which fills the universe, 

 and whose vibrations constitute light ; modifications, the nature of 

 which cannot be known until the most intimate properties of electri- 

 city have been more thoroughly studied and ascertained. 



2d. It has been successfully determined that magnetism is only 

 the result of natural electric currents. But what is the disposition of 

 these currents in magnetised bodies ? What is the cause which gives 

 rise to them, and what is the reason that a very small number of bo- 

 dies only is susceptible of the magnetic virtue ? These are questions 

 which cannot yet be answered. 



