170 Getaiine, 



knifa, than it esqiloded with its usual violence ; the table was 

 Split in two ; blood- issued copiously from every part of hie 

 face, not from wounds, for it does not appear that the frag- 

 ments hit him, but, according to the opinion of a competent 

 judge, the blood was actually forced through the pores of the 

 skin by the power of the explosion, which very nearly de- 

 stroyed his eyes. He suffered immensely, but now, at the 

 end of eight months, sees partially with one eye, but the 

 other is nearly, if not quite, destroyed. 



Should not the tampering with such dangerous substances 

 by ignorant people be prevented by law ? 



In a late lecture in the laboratory of Yale College, some 

 fulminating silver, on the point of a knife, was in the act of 

 being put upon a copper-plate connected with one pole of a 

 galvanic battery in active operation, the other pole was not 

 touched by the experimenter ; but it seems that the influence 

 which was communicated through the floor of the room was 

 sufiicient instantly to explode the powder, as soon as the knife 

 touched the copper-plate ; the knifeblade was broken in twa, 

 and one half of it thrown to a distance among the audience. 



Recently also, we are informed, in one of the foreign jour- 

 nals, that a man in England, who accidentally trod on a quantity 

 of fulminating silver, had his foot nearly destroyed by the 

 explosion. 



USEFUL ARTS. 



Abt- XIX. Jlccount of an economical method of obtain- 

 ing Gelatine from bones, as practised in Faris. Com- 

 municated to the Editor by Mr. Isaac Doolittle. 



Paris, 16th May, 1818. 

 My dear Sir, 



1\. FEW days since I visited the very interesting establish- 

 ment of M. Robert, for the extraction of the gelatinous matter 

 from bongg, 



