i 60 Miscellanies. 



10. Mechanics^ Magazine and Journal of public internal improve- 

 ment. — This useful and commendable work is published by Mr. 

 Samuel N. Dickinson of Boston, and the first volume containing 

 384 pages 8vo. is just finished. It is neatly printed on a good pa- 

 per, and is furnished with good figures, chiefly from wood, for the 

 various subjects which require that species of illustration. 



Dr. Jones has for several years conducted, very successfully, the 

 Franklin Journal, published at Philadelphia ; and New York, has at 

 times, been furnished with a Mechanics' Magazine, but we do not re- 

 collect that a similar attempt has been made in Boston before the 

 present. 



On looking through the pages of the Boston Journal, we find that 

 they contain much valuable matter both original and selected, and 

 that the Magazine is both an instructive and attractive work. The 

 editor has honored the American Journal by occasional selections, 

 and we are happy if any thing in our pages may be esteemed suffi- 

 ciently valuable to obtain in this way a wider circulation, and an op- 

 portunity of effecting more good. We regret to learn that Mr. 

 Dickinson's patronage is not at present sufficiently extensive to meet 

 his inevitable expenses, but we trust that a second year will remedy 

 this difficulty, and that Boston will not permit its Mechanic's Maga- 

 zine to languish for want of adequate patronage. 



1 1 . Asbestos impregnated with platinum. — I find that if asbestos 

 or charcoal be soaked under an exhausted receiver in muriate of pla- 

 tinum, then dried in an evaporating oven for twenty fours hours and 

 afterwards ignited, the property of ignition in the gaseous elements 

 of water is acquired. — From a letter of Dr. Hare. 



12. A new Svo. monthly Journal, called The American Bo- 

 tanical Register, is announced for publication at the city of Wash- 

 ington ; it will contain the description, specific character, culture, 

 history, and application in the arts, of the plants exclusively indigen- 

 ous to America ; together with the systematic and common syno- 

 nyms, the scientific names accentuated, and their etymology explain- 

 ed. The whole arranged according to the Linnsean system, and the 

 natural orders of Linnaeus and Jussieu, with references to figures 

 and the standard authorities, for the description of each individual 

 plant. 



