200 Miscellanies. 
mixture consists of 25lbs. of sulphuric acid and 14lbs. of alcohol. 
The first rectification of ether thus obtained yields about its third of 
ether of .725 sp. gr. which may of course be considerably increased 
by repeated rectifications, besides about 20 to 25 per cent of alcohol 
are regained, which may be subsequently used again, particularly 
for the supply of alcohol to the mixture. Of 124lbs. of alcohol of 
0.835 sp. gr. 22lbs. were regained; the quantity of pure ether of 
0.720 sp. gr. at 14°R. amounted to 59]bs., and of sulphuric acid 25lbs. 
were used. The expenses of fuel, apparatus, attendance, &c. doesnot 
raise the price of the ether to more than twice that of its weight of 
alcohol.— Idem. 
MECHANICAL PHILOSOPHY. 
1. Remarks on the floating ice met with in remarkably low lati- 
tudes in the South Seas; by Capt. James Horsburgh, F.R.S8., Hy- 
drographer to the East India Company.—The author remarks that it 
is rare to meet with floating ice near the Cape of Good Hope and the 
coast of Africa. ‘The journals of the East India ships make no men- 
tion of ice during the last century, although many of these vessels 
pursue a course which carries them to the Lat. of 40°, 41°, and 42° Ss. 
The author then recites the following instances of the occurrence 
of southern ice. 
1828, April 7. L’Harmonica, a French ship, in Lat. 35° 50’ S. 
Long. 18° 5’ E. of Greenwich, encountered various masses of floating 
ice, some of which appeared a hundred feet high. ‘The Spanish ship 
Constancia, on the route from Manilla to Cadiz, on the same day, 
met with several floating islands of ice in Lat. 35° 56’ S., Long. 16° 
59’ E. of Greenwich. : 
1828, April 28. The brig Eliza, af Antwerp, in returning from 
Batavia, in Lat. 35° 31’ S., Long. 18° 17 E. Saw ice which had 
the appearance of steeples two hundred and fifty or three hundred 
feet high, and passed within three fourths of a mile of it. e sea 
broke with such fury against it, that they would have supposed it 
lodged against a hidden reef, had not the line proved the absence of 
soundings. 
The East India ship Farquharson, April 20, 1829, met with a 
‘reat mountain of ice in Lat. 39° 13’ S., Long. 48° 40’ E. The 
dimensions of this floating mass were about two miles in circumference 
and one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea. 
