164 Miscellanies. 



2. At the time of flowering, a small quantity of sugar may be 

 detected. 



3. When the grain is still soft, about 20 or 25 days after flower- 

 ing, the plant contains about 1 in 100 of crystallizable sugar. 



4. When the grain is completely ripe, the stalk furnishes two 

 parts in 100 of sugar, and 4 in 100 of rich and good-tasting mo- 

 lasses. 



The residue remaining after the extraction of the sugar, may be 

 given for food to cattle, or will serve for the manufacture of wrap- 

 ping paper which will bring 11 francs for 50 kilogrammes. — Uln- 

 stitut, No. 157, 1836. 



5. Reduction of Metals. — M. Becq,uerel has succeeded in con- 

 structing an Electro-Chemical apparatus by means of Iron, a con- 

 centrated solution of common Salt, and an ore of Silver, and thus 

 has been enabled to extract from this ore, the silver it contains, in 

 the form of Crystals. The ores experimented upon were from Co- 

 lumbia and Allemont. The same process may be employed in the 

 extraction of the silver from Copper Pyrites. It is ineftectual only 

 in the case of Argentiferous Galena. — Ulnsiitut, No. 147. 



GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



1. Ashmolean Society. 



Copied from the AthericEum, No. 451, London, Saturday, June 18th, 1836, and 

 communicated by Dr. J. Barratt, of Middletown, Conn. 



May 20. — ^The President in the Chair. Dr. Buckland commu- 

 nicated to the Society a notice of some very curious recent discov- 

 eries of fossil footsteps of unknown quadrupeds in the new red 

 sandstone of Saxony, and of fossil birds in sandstone of the same 

 formation in the valley of the Connecticut. In the year 1834, sim- 

 ilar tracks of at least four species of quadrupeds were discovered 

 in the sandstone quarries of Hesseberg, near Hildburghausen. 

 Some of these appear to be referable to the tortoises, and to a small 

 web footed reptile; No bones of any of the animals that made 

 these footsteps have yet been found. Another discovery of fossil 

 footsteps has still more recently been made by Professor Hitchcock, 

 in the new red sandstone of the valley of the Connecticut. The 

 most remarkable among these footsteps, are those of a gigantic bird, 

 twice the size of an ostrich, whose foot measured fifteen inches in 



