1S37] 



FARMRJIS' REGISTER. 



63 



siibmiltpil to us the following stiitement ol' Ihcts 

 illustmtive of the st;ite oi' llie tnule : 



Facts relative to the tobacco trade. 



cost of Amencnn toliacfo to iho 

 has uf^iiully avi-iaged 3d to id 



"Tho pririK 

 nianulacturer, 

 pt-r lb. 



"The duty is 3s. per lb. 



"Tile exj)ense of sniugti-liiijT tobacco by iho car- 

 go, from the first cost to tiiat ol' latidliig, is 92(1 

 per lb. 



'•The snu'.frgl-'r receives percariro at the rate of 

 2s 6d i)er lb ; or in other words, a |.rofit of Is. S^d. 

 per lb. 



"Our remarks upon the above retiuire to he con- 

 fined only to the opinion o(" the committee oi' the 

 House of Commons on the growth of tobacco in 

 Ireland, in 1830. 



"That it liirther appears from the evidence, 

 that smug'ilino' of foreign tobacco is at present 

 carried on to a great extent, and that all the mea- 

 sures now adopted, at great expense to the coun- 

 try, are, and will be, inefi'ectual to suppress it, so 

 long as the temptation of evading a duty equal to 

 twelve times the value of the article upon which 

 it is imposed remains. i 



"Observe how increased population, when ac- 1 

 companied by decreased duties, has operated upon ! 

 certain articles compared with tob;icco. ! 



"We may also add citjars — the amount upon j 

 which duty was paid in 1823, at the rate of 18s. 

 per lb. S,GOO lbs.— 1&30, ai 9s. per lb., 66.000 lbs.~ 

 1835, at 9s. per lb., 144,600 lbs. 



"Thus the revenue derived from the latter 

 source is nine times greater than when the dmy 

 was double the present rale. From the above 

 facts, we arrive at this conclusion, that were the 

 duty so reduced as effeciually to put down the 

 smuirgler, all the tobacco now consumed in the 

 United Kingdom would pay duty. 



"The total consumption is estimated at 50,000- 

 000 pounds, of which 22,000,000 pounds only 

 pays duty. By reducinir this duty to Is. per lb., 

 the illicit trade would be destroyed, and the con- 

 sumer would pay to the government Is. per lb., 

 for the remaining 28,000,000 \bs^., with which he 

 is now suj)plied by the smugirler at 2s. 6d. per lb. 



"The expensive eslab'ishinent r{' the coast 

 guard service would thus he rendered useless. 



"We deem it unnec(-ssary to adduce fiirther 

 reasons for advocating a reduction of duty to Is. 

 per lb." 



EXTRAORlJINAUY EXPERIMENT. 



The public are aware that Mr. Andrew Crosse 

 has been recently pursuing a series ol' researches 

 into the process of crystallization by means of his 

 galvanic batteries, and that he has made discove- 

 ries which have thrown quite a new Iii.):ht upon 

 science. Some weeks atjo he prepared a sllicious 

 fluid for the purpose of crystallization. He heat- 

 ed a flint to a white heat, and then plunged it in 

 water to pulverize it. The silex, thus reduced, 

 was saturated to excess with muriatic acid. The 

 mixture was placed in ajar — a piece of flannel 

 was suspended in i^, one end of which extended 

 over the side, and thus, by capilliary attraction, 

 the liquor was slowl)' Gliered, lell into a funnel. 



and thence dropped on a piece of iron stone from 

 Mount Vesuvious, upon which were laid the two 

 wires connected with either pole of" the battery. 

 We should state that the iron stone had been pre- 

 viously healed to a white heat, so that no jierms 

 of life could have existed upon it. J\ir. Crosse 

 made his daily observations of the wires to disco- 

 ver the beginningof the process of crysiallizaiion. 

 On the 4th day he saw some small white specks 

 upon the stone. Four days afterwards they had 

 elona'ated, and assumed an oval form. He con- 

 cluded that they were incipient crystals. Great was 

 his surprise on the 23d to find eight legs project- 

 ing from each of these wliite bodies; still he could 

 not believe that they weie living beings. But on 

 the 26th day his surjirise was complete; there 

 could be no doubt they moved, they led, they 

 were perfect insects. Eighteen or twenty of iliem 

 have since a|/peared. Many persons have seen 

 them, but there is no record of such an insect. It 

 is in form of something like a mite. It has eight 

 legs, four bristles at the tail, and the edges of the 

 body are very bristly. Its motions are visible to 

 the naked eye — its color is gray — its substance is 

 pulpy. It appears to feed upon the silicious par- 

 ticles in the fluid. The most extraordinary cir- 

 cumstances in the phenomenon is the nature of 

 the fluid in which this insect lives and thrives. 

 This acid destroys instantly, every other living 

 being. But a second trial has confirmed the fact 

 beyond a doubt. Another portion of silex was 

 prepared in the same manner and reduced to a 

 glutinous form, but without the acid. A coil of sil- 

 ver wire was suspended in itirom one of the poles 

 of the battery, and the other pole was immersed, 

 so as to send through the mass an incessant stream 

 of the electric fluid. About three weaks after- 

 wards Mr. Crosse examined the poles to search for 

 crystals, and in one of the coils of wire he found 

 one of these strange insects. This proves ihat it 

 is produced from the silex, and not from the acid. 

 Mr. Crosse, with his usual modesty, has content- 

 ed himself with stating the tiict, wiihout attemp- 

 ting to account for it. He is in correspondence 

 with Professor Buckland upon the subject, and 

 the learned professor has suggested an exj^lana- 

 tion, which it will be for future observeis, by re- 

 peated experiments, to confirm. We should state 

 that the insects were principally found at the neg- 

 ative pole of the battery. A German naturalist 

 has recently discovered that silicious and other 

 rocks are chiefly coni|;osed of the remains of in- 

 sects. May not the germs of some of them, re- 

 leased fVoni their prirson house, and placed in a 

 position favorable to the developement of vitality, 

 have sprun<i to life after a sleep of thousands of 

 years 7 — [English Paper. 



Flint Omipused of Living jinimalcuhs — [Con- 

 firmed.'] — The dreams of Orpheus, who moved 

 the flinty rocks with the divine melody of his lute, 

 and the line of Sliakspeare that there are "speak- 

 ing sermons in stones," seem realized by the mar- 

 vellous experiments of Mv. Crosse, of Somer- 

 setshire, to which we have alluded. Chemistry 

 has thus discovered processes full as wonderful as 

 the miracles of scriptures. At a late meeting of 

 the Royal Institution London, the celebrated 

 chemist Dr. Faraday delivered a lecture, in which 

 he alluded to the recent discoveries of Mr. Crosse, 

 with respect to the formation or revivification of 

 insects in flint, which, although doubted by many, 



