174 Miscellanies. 



happy lo observe, that this great region, (Mauch Chunk and its vi- 

 cinity, on the Lehigh,) continues to be successfully explored, and 

 particularly that the vast treasures of coal at the nev^^ mines at Room 

 Run fully justify the statements made respecting them in the article 

 quoted above. 



Some serious difficulties and delays have been encountered, par- 

 ticularly upon the Delaware Canal ; but all difficulties will ultimately 

 yield to the injjpUigent perseverance and resources of the company ; 

 one hundred and fifty tons of coal are contracted to be delivered, from 

 the Lehigh Mines, on board the boats, the ensuing season : four hun- 

 dred thousand could be delivered in a season, with the application of 

 no more force than was applied last year during a part of the time. 



3. Atmospheric pressure. — I caused to be made, a very strong bell 

 glass, nine inches, in diameter, and low and flat, for the purpose of con- 

 gealing water, by its own evaporation, in the manner of Prof. Leslie. 

 It was tried upon the plate of one of M. Pixii's glass barreled air pumps, 

 from Paris. At the moment, Mr. O. P. Hubbard, assistant in the chem- 

 ical department of Yale College, and myself, and also a young man who 

 was working the pump, were stooping and intently inspecting the ex- 

 periment, and our faces were almost in contact with the bell, when it 

 was instantaneously crushed by the pressure of the atmosphere, with 

 a loud report from the collapse. The fragments of glass were in- 

 numerable, and some of them impalpable; some of the larger were 

 driven into the glass plate of the pump, causing deep wounds, which 

 it was necessary to remove by a new and thorough grinding, and, even 

 in that way, they were not entirely obliterated. Still, neither of us 

 was even scratched by the glass, for the obvious reason that the 

 force was all exerted downward and inward. 



4. Siliceous glass formed from burning hay. — Extract of a letter 

 dated Watertown, Conn., March, 1833, from Mr. Chester Button, 

 to Mr. Samuel W. S. Button of the Senior Class in Yale College. 



" There was a quantity of siliceous glass formed from a stack of 

 hay burned about a year since, within twelve rods of my father's 

 house. Having never been observed before, it gave rise to various 

 conjectures as to its origin. In the American Journal of Science 

 and Arts, Vol. XIX, p. 395, I found a notice of siliceous glass 

 formed from hay, by lightning, copied from Br. Brewster's Edin- 

 burgh Journal. From the style of the notice, I sliould infer that it 

 is a rare occurrence, and on that account interesting. The stack of 



