198  Miscellanies. 
seeds. If the peas remain in the boiling water four minutes, most 
of them will be killed, but not all; of about forty peas thus treated 
last year, three vegetated and are now growing. ‘The corcle I find is 
more tenacious of life than the cotyledons. 
I have recently analyzed some of the soil of our woodlands, and I 
find in 100 grs. of the dried earth, 4.5 grs. of geine, 7 grs. here. . 
geine, 2.25 grs. of salts of lime, (principally carbonate,) 12.5 gr 
aluminous matter, and 74 grs. siliceous matter. A hundred grains of 
earth yield about half a grain of phosphate of lime, but not the least 
trace of sulphate of lime; and yet the soil produces plants which 
contain this salt. I should mistrust my means of delicate analysis, 
did not the sulphate generally exist in larger quantities than the phos- 
‘phate. A protracted decoction of several hundred grains of earth 
yielded no precipitate with barytic solutions.* : ; 
© Richmond, Indiana, April, 1840. 
2. Volcanic Ashes.—The following memorandum has been hand- 
ed to us by Rev. Peter Parker, M. D., who was a passenger in the 
Niantic from Canton to New York.—Ebs. 
Ship Niantic, L. F. Doty, master, April 5th, 1840, being in lat. 
7° 05/ north, lon. 121° 10’ east, at 2h. A. M. sixty miles west from 
Mindanao, one of the Phillipine islands, came up a fine breeze from 
the northeast, which was attended with a shower of dust resembling 
that of ashes. It came so thick that it obscured the moon and stats, 
which were all out very clear before; it filled the sailors’ eyes 5° full 
that they were obliged to retreat from the deck below ; it lasted about 
one hour, and cleared away. At daylight, the Ni Jooked like an 
old furnace, completely covered from the royal-mast-head down to 
the water’s edge. The decks I should judge one quarter of an inch 
thick with the ashes; we took up one half bushel, and might have 
saved three or four. It fell in small quantities at different times el 
two or three days after. On the 14th of April, spoke the English 
barque Margaret, whaler; reported likewise on the 5th of April had 
a similar shower of ashes, being at the time three hundred miles north 
northeast from us; he informed me that on the 12th of April, ae 
ited several villages on the island of Madura entirely deserted by the 
Po from one of which he had taken two brass cannon ante” 
other articles. This led us to think that some volcanic eT™uP ai? 
had lately happened in that neighborhood. After the 9th, perceived 
no more in proceeding northward. 
July 28d, 1840. 
e sulphate of 
* ou “8 - * 7" : 
We conceive that this is not conclusive, for in all probability th i bonste 
lime, if it exists in the soil, is converted into carbonate by the alkaline ¢ 
with which the soil is digested.— Eps. 
ath 
