Miscellanies. 155 



douce du Senegal," by Mr. Rang, in relation to the torpidity of the 

 Anodonta Chaiziana. 



April 6, 1838. — Dr. Patterson announced the death of Dr. Na- 

 thaniel Bovvditch, a member of the Society, who died on the 16th of 

 March last, aged 63. Dr. Patterson was appointed to prepare a ne- 

 crological notice of the deceased. 



Mr. Du Ponceau mentioned the death, not heretofore reported, of 

 Mr. Adet, a member of the Society, who died in March, 1834. 



April 20, 1838. — Mr. Lea read a Note supplementary to his Me- 

 moir, now in the Society's press, on the subject of the Uniones, 

 and permission was given to add the same to the principal commu- 

 nication. 



The following candidates were elected members : — 



William Harris, M. D., of Philadelphia. 



Robert Treat Paine, of Boston. 



John P. Emmet, M. D., of the University of Virginia. 



Hugh S. Legare, of Charleston, S. C. 



Samuel Breck, of Philadelphia. 



Col. Sylvanus Thayer, U. S. Engineers. 



Francis Wayland, D. D., of Brown University. 



Henry Baldwin, of Pennsylvania. 



William H. Prescott, of Boston. 



May, 4, 1838. — Pursuant to appointment. Dr. Horner read a necro- 

 logical notice of Dr. Philip Syng Physick, late a member of the Society. 

 Dr. Horner having expressed a wish to make the same public, per- 

 mission was granted to him to withdraw it from the files of the Society 

 for publication. 



Dr. Patterson read a letter from Professor Henry, of Princeton, 

 dated May 4, 1838, announcing that, in recent experiments, he has 

 produced directly from ordinary electricity, currents by induction 

 analogous to those obtained from galvanism ; and that he has ascer- 

 tained that these currents possess some peculiar properties, that they 

 may be increased in intensity to an indefinite degree, so that if a dis- 

 charge from a Leyden jar be sent through a good conductor, a shock 

 may be obtained from a contiguous but perfectly insulated conductor, 

 more intense than one directly from the jar. Prof. Henry remarks 

 that he has also found that all conducting substances screen the induc- 

 tive action, and that he has succeeded in referring this screening pro- 

 cess to currents induced for a moment in the interposed body. 



Dr. Hare exhibited to the Society fourteen and a half ounces of 

 platinum, fused by his hydro-oxygen blowpipe, and a specimen of pure 

 platinum, freed from iridium by the process of Berzelius. 



Dr. Patterson submitted to the Society's inspection, the log-book 

 of the steam-ship Savannah, Capt. Moses Rogers, launched at New 



