500 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



On motion of Mi*. Tillman, a committee to examine it was ordered, and 

 Mr. Veecler appointed. 



Prof. Mason. — I often wanted such a machine to sow my grass seed. 



Mr. Veeder. — To avoid the difficulty of sowing grass seed, which is diffi- 

 cult on account of its lightness, in windy weather, I mix the grass seed and 

 grain, moisten them, roll all in plaster, which gives them some more weight, • 

 and are then well sown broadcast. 



Mr. Tillman asked Mr. Seeley to exhibit his tests of the mine water from 

 Pennsylvania coal mines, laid on the table by Mr. Pierce. 



Mr. Seeley. — Showed by its effect on litmus paper, on sesqui oxide of 

 iron, on alumina, its peculiar acid, producing with iron, in a moment, an 

 ink which the Secretary used in taking notes during the remainder of the 

 eession. 



Prof. Hedcrick. — It is a sesqui salt of iron. 



Prof. Mason. — A like mineral acid may be found perhaps operating very 

 quietly and imperceptibly in ruining the rails, &c., leading to some of thos^ 

 disasters which painfully afflict us ! Scrutiny should be used in time by 

 all the intelligont officers of our great railway system 1 



John Johnson. — Cast iron does not suffer like our wrought iron ! 



Mr. Seeley. — Pipes of iron suffer occasionally greatly. Lead pipes do 

 not. Percussion, to which we attribute injury to iron, does not affect lead^ 



Mr. Garbanati. — The percussion mentioned at a late meeting, by Mr.. 

 Meigs, tried on the trunnion of cannon, is successful at a certain number of 

 blows. Suppose that 100 blows would break off the the trunnion, but we- 

 stop at the 97th blow — will not the iron thus almost separated, recover its 

 cohesion? and may we not attribute the destruction of steam boilers in at: 

 measure to the repeated percussions, vibrations or strainings it suffers from 

 the steam ? 



Mr. Meigs said that philosophy had many interesting amusements. Such 

 were part of the Aristotelian plan of instruction, chiefly enjoyed in their 

 peripatetics in the famed groves of Academus, uniler whose shades they 

 walked for due exercise of body, and put forth the most profound ideas. 

 That school knew no atoms. It recognized the infinite divisibility of mat- 

 ter ! — that Grod could compact all the matter of his universe into one grain, 

 and I'e-expand it ! — that a single drop of wine poured into the ocean, would; 

 diffuse through all the water and atmosphere of the world I We now say 

 that matter is so far from being solid, is in fact infinilely divided, that the 

 component parts of a bar of iron, are comjjarativtly as distant from each •. 

 other as our heavenly bodies ! That the body of a man, magnified to the 

 size of the sun, a million miles in diameter ! would show its components in 

 action — its electrics, &c., as in the heavens! Nor have we succeeded in! 

 the least possible manner in explaining away this theory! Owv sciol'sts 

 should do what not one in a thousand does — read the old philosophers ! 

 and they would learn as Faratlay, and the greatest of moderns know, that 

 our supposed very astute chemical science, so far as relates to atoms, and 

 to elements, is quackery, fully a match for Hahnmann's iiifinittssinial . 



