422 TKANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



tained to the fraction of a cent in any department where it may he found. 

 But little else is required, then, in the packing- room, than to show custom- 

 ers the goods, slip the bonnets into boxes from the large pile always in 

 readiness, and send them off. 



While in the packing room the sight-seeing reader could not but have 

 been tempted to ask where so many boxes came from. Should he walk a 

 short distance across the Common he would find, nearly buried in logs and 

 boards, an old church, one in which the writer, many years ago, listened 

 with childish impatience to long sermons, eat caraway, and slept. Having 

 been more than doubled in size this old church is now a box manufactory, 

 or, in the town parlance, the "steam mill." The congregation daily at- 

 tending here consists of about thirty persons. Through the agency of tliese 

 about a million feet of lumber is annually converted into forty thousand 

 cases, and from seventy-five to a hundred tons of straw board meet with a 

 change into bandboxes, all for the use of this single straw bonnet factory. 

 Such are a part of the results that have grown out of little Betsy Metcalf s 

 First American Straw Bonnet. 



After selecting "-the manufacture of salt" as the subject for the next dis- 

 cussion, the Association adjourned to December 1st. 



American Institute Pmatechnic Association, 



Dec. iHt, 1864. 



Chairman, Prof S. D. Tillman; Secretary, Mr. B. Garvey. 



Dr. Parmalee exhibited a piece of Chinese wax used by shoemakers there. 

 Its composition was carbon, 30; hydrog-en, 36; oxygen 2. It melts at 160 

 degrees. 



Dr. Parmalee also burnt a piece of magnesium wire, which gave an 

 intensely brilliant light. 



Mr. Jireh Bull said, since the last meeting, a distinguished inventor 

 and a member of our Institute has died, and I have thought it prope^r that 

 this Association should take some notice of that event, and I therefore ofler 

 the following resolution: 



Besolved, That this Association deeply deplore the recent demise of C. C. 

 Harrison, a member of the American Institute, and an eminent mechani- 

 cian, whose labors and genius have been exclusively devoted to improve- 

 ments in optical instruments. 



After appropriate remarks regarding the character and services of Mr, 

 Harrison, the resolution was unanimously adopted. 



The Chairman read the following items of scientific intelligence; 



Indium. 



Reich and Ricliter, the discoverers of this new metal, have been engaged 

 i*n determining its atomic weight. Tlie mean of their experiments gives 

 37 as its number on the hydrogen scale. 



Prize for Analyses. 



The Imperial Society of Agriculture of France has offered a prize of 

 2,000 francs, to be given in 18G7, for the best analyses of the following 



I 



