174 Miscellanies. 



Five of these titles were the rewards of members of the medical 

 profession, and one only, that of Sir H. Davy, could be attributed ex- 

 clusively to science. — Edinburgh Journal of Science, July., 1830. 



2. Necrology. — The president of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, 

 announced at the session of May 17, the loss which they had just sus- 

 tained in the death of M. Fourier, perpetual secretary for the math- 

 ematical sciences, and one of the most illustrious scavans of the age. 



The committee appointed at the succeeding session to nominate 

 suitable persons to fill the important station thus left vacant, presented 

 on the 31st of May. MM. Arago, Puissant, and Becquerel, and at a 

 subsequent meeting, Arago was, by a large majority, elected perpetual 

 secretary, in the room of his deceased colleague. — Rev. Encyc. 



3. State of Education in the City of Lyons. — In the course of an 

 extensive journey through the South of France, in the autumn of 

 1828, the benevolent savant Ch. Dupin, visited Lyons, and has fur- 

 nished the Revue Encyclopedique with an interesting memoir on the 

 commercial and moral condition of that city. From a census annu- 

 ally taken of the number of young men who arrive at the age of twen- 

 ty, it appears that in 1827, the number of that class amounted to 836 

 in the city of Lyons : of these 285 knew how to read and write-; 329 

 knew only how to read ; 221 knew nothing. In the rest of the de- 

 partment of the Rhone, of 1919 young persons examined, 787 knew 

 how to read and write ; 139 knew only how to read; 993 could nei- 

 ther read nor write. The memoir farther observes. 



At Lyons, more than a fourth part of the young people can neither 

 read nor write. At Lyons, less than a third of the young people can 

 write. At Lyons, more young persons are interrupted in the midst of 

 a course of primary instruction, than are left to finish it ; in other 

 words, more than half the parents Avho send their children to the 

 schools, gratuitous or otherwise, withdraw them as soon as they have 

 learned to read, and without waiting until they can write. 



They only means of remedying this evil, is to render primary in- 

 struction so rapid, as to teach the children reading and writing in 

 the time now devoted to reading only, by the old and difficult meth- 

 od which they still pursuB. — Rev. Encyc. Avril, 1829. 



4. Rail Roads in Austria. — Within five years, three rail roads 

 (chemins en fer) have been Constructed in Austria by private compa- 

 nies. The longest is that from the river Moldau, in Bohemia, on the 

 confines of Bavaria, to the Danube. Its length already exceeds 

 13,400 cordes; the corde being equal to six German feet The 

 building of several chain bridges is also under consideration. Indufi- 



