294 British Association for the Advmicement of Science. 



in which it hes by its weight, and is used as water would be. 

 But the most remarkable feature still remains. About five or six 

 times a day the discharge of gas suddenly stops ; in a few sec- 

 onds the surface of the well is calm. The flow of water, amount- 

 ing to 40 cubic feet per minute, also stops, or rather, becomes neg- 

 ative, for the water recedes in the shaft even when the pumps, 

 commonly used to extract the brine, do not work, and the water 

 subsides during 15 or 20 minutes. It then flows again, the water 

 appearing first and suddenly, the gas gradually increasing in quan- 

 tity, till, after three quarters of an hour, the shaft is full as at first. 

 The state of greatest discharge continues with little variation 

 since the bore was made in 1822. Within a short distance is a 

 bore 554 Bavarian feet deep, which exhibits somewhat similar 

 phenomena. Altogether, Prof F. considers that the salt spring 

 at Kissingen is the most singular phenomenon of its kind in Eu- 

 rope except the Geysers. 



Mr. Russell gave a description of a " Substitute for the Moun- 

 tain Barometer in Measuring Heights,'''' by Sir John Robison. 

 Mr. R. said, that all persons who had used the mountain barom- 

 eter, when measuring heights, would admit that it was a very 

 cumbersome instrument, put out of order by very slight accidents, 

 and only to be used by persons well skilled in observing. The 

 principle of Sir J. Robison's contrivance is simple, and such that 

 the, most ignorant person might be intrusted with the preparatory 

 xnanipulation of it, and might be sent up mountains when the 

 philosopher could not leave his study, and bring back the air to 

 be experimented upon ; and, since he could not go to the air with 

 his barometer, to cause it to come to him. It consisted of a wood- 

 en box, containing simply a thermometer and a number of tubes, 

 of a bore something wider than those of self-registering thermom- 

 eters, open at one end, and blown into bulbs at the other; also a 

 small vessel of quicksilver. All that the person who went up the 

 mountain had to do, was to note the thermometer, and immerse 

 the open end of one of the tubes into the mercury at each sta- 

 tion, and then bring down the whole. The examiner then places 

 each bulbed tube, into the stem of which a considerable quantity 

 of mercury will, of course, be found to have entered, under the 

 receiver of an air pump, either along with a barometer, or with 

 a well-made gauge : and on pushing the exhaustion until the 

 mercury stood within the bulbed tube as it did upon the moun- 



