394 Miscellanies. 



contain animated self moving particles of the same form and size in 

 every kind of matter, and having similar motions." 



This question having been brought before the French Academy, 

 Ad. Brogniart presented a memoir upon it, stating that it is a charac- 

 ter common to the reproductive particles of all organized beings to 

 enjoy an individual vitality, manifested by spontaneons motions. R. 

 Brown extends this proposition to all the bodies in nature. Dr. Schultze, 

 of Carlsruhe, has examined the doctrine of Brown, and arrives at a re- 

 sult very opposite. He finds the motion which Brown considers as 

 spontaneous to be occasioned by the evaporation of the liquid, and to 

 the imbibition or solution of the particles. If placed in fluid of difiicult 

 evaporation, oil, for example, the motion ceases. They are accelerated 

 in alcohol and ether. These motions are of three kinds, first, ascent 

 and descent, produced by evaporation ; second, oscillation, like the 

 supination and pronation of the hand, owing to a successive imbibition 

 of particles ; third, rotation, owing to a solution of the substance in 

 the fluid. — Rev. Encyc. Juillet, 1830. 



8. Large Still. — The largest condenser for distilling gin ever man- 

 ufactured has just been made for Mr. Hodges, by Mr. Joseph Hulls, 

 of High Wickham. Its height is fourteen feet six inches, its diam- 

 eter eight feet. It is calculated that it will fdistil ten gallons per 

 minute, six thousand per day, or one million eight hundred and seven- 

 ty eight thousand per annum. — Morning- Herald. 



The productive capacity of this still is by no means so unrivalled 

 as represented. In many Scotch distilleries, where alembics are em- 

 ployed from fifty two to fifty four inches in diameter, and about eight 

 inches in depth, no less than eighty gallons are produced every three 

 minutes and a half. — Mechanics^ Mag. Jan. 2, 1830. 



9. On the production of magnetism hy friction, by M. Haldat. — • 

 Friction has been long known to be capable of producing magnetism, 

 but it was not supposed to be efl[icacious, unless upon iron either mag- 

 netized or in a neutral state. M. Haldat of Nancy has, however, 

 found that all hard bodies may, by means of friction, assist in the de- 

 composition of the magnetic fluid, if it is promoted by the com- 

 bined action of magnets, Avhich, by themselves, are incapable of pro- 

 ducing it. To prove this, "take a piece of soft iron wire, a decimeter 

 long (about four inches) and a millimeter (gj of an inch) in diameter. 



If this wire is placed horizontally between two bar magnets, with 

 their opposite poles facing one another, and at such a distance that it 

 cannot be magnetized, it will receive distinct magnetism by friction 



