118 Scientific Intelligence. 
the fine deposit proceeding from one pole towards the opposite, increas- 
ing in width and then abruptly ceasing before reaching the other pole. 
17, Faraday’s View of Luminiferous Ether ; (Atheneum, No. 965.) 
—Prof. Faraday, at the meeting of the Royal Institute in April, remark- 
ed that the conclusions of Dr. Lyon Playfair, so like his own, and the 
consideration of the like velocities of light through space and of elec- 
tricity through dense matter, induced him to utter a speculation long on 
his mind, and constantly gaining strength : viz., that perhaps those vibra- 
tions by which radiant agencies, such as light, heat, actinic influence, 
&c., convey their force through space, are not vibrations of an ether, 
but vibrations of the lines of force, which, in his view, equally connect 
the most distant masses together, and make the smallest atoms or par- 
ticles by their properties influential on each other and_ perceptible 
10-US. 
18. Electrophonic Telegraph.—The journals of St. Petersburgh 
speak of an electrophonic telegraph, the invention of the Chevalier 
Lasckott, which Prof. Jacob has presented to the Imperial Academy of 
that city. It is composed of a clavier of ten keys, ten bells of differ- 
ent sizes, and ten conducting wires; thfough whose means the letters 
of the alphabet and the words which they form are expressed by sounds 
and harmonies. 
Il. MrnrraLocy anp Gronoey. 
1. Ores and Minerals of Lake Superior ; by C. T. Jackson, (Bost. 
Nat. Hist. Soc. Proceed., March, 1846. )—In connection with many valu- 
able details respecting the mines of Lake Superior, Dr. Jackson states 
several facts of mineralogical interest. Some of the large masses of 
pure copper obtained, are “stated to be covered with crystals of copper of 
octahedral and dodecahedral forms. On exploring the chrysocolla de- 
posit at Copper Harbor, a remarkable vein of black oxyd of coppers 
with black and brown silicates, was discovered. The vein is from eight 
inches to a foot wide where the black oxyd is obtained, but is very it 
tegular. Dr. Jackson suggests that the chrysocolla, or hydrous silicate 
of copper, was originally a gelatinous mass, like silica, and that it was 
deposited on the cooling of the rock; while in the more heated inte- 
rior the black and brown anhydrous silicates were deposited. He also 
suggests that the black oxyd might have been precipitated from the hot 
siliceous solution by the action of hot lime water, which was evidently 
abundant, and adds that this operation may be easily imitated in the 
laboratory of the chemist. Trap rocks occur near the vein, and to 
them the heat is attributed; and the alkalies which produce the anal- 
oil place of Inumonte may have originated from the subjacent 
occurs in this eet in an adjacent c calca- 
