198 Miscellanies. 



seeds. If the peas remain in the boiling water four minutes, most 

 of them will be killed, but not all ; of about forty peas thus treated 

 last year, three vegetated and are now growing. The corcle I find is 

 more tenacious of life than the cotyledons, 



I have recently analyzed some of the soil of our woodlands, and I 

 find in 100 grs. of the dried earth, 4.5 grs. of geine, 7 grs. of insoluble 

 geine, 2.25 grs. of salts of lime, (principally carbonate,) 12.5 grs. 

 aluminous matter, and 74 grs. siliceous matter. A hundred grains of 

 earth yield about half a grain of phosphate of lime, but not the least 

 trace of sulphate of lime ; and yet the soil produces plants which 

 contain this salt. I should mistrust my means of delicate analysis, 

 did not the sulphate generally exist in larger quantities than the phos- 

 phate. A protracted decoction of several hundred grains of earth 

 yielded no precipitate with barytic solutions.* 

 Richmond, Indiana, April, 1840. 



2. Volcanic Ashes. — The following memorandum has been hand- 

 ed to us by Rev. Peter Parker, M. D., who was a passenger in the 

 Niantic from Canton to New York. — Eds. 



Ship Niantic, L. F. Doty, master, April 5th, 1840, being in lat. 

 7° 05' north, Ion. 121° 10' east, at 2h. A. M. sixty miles west from 

 Mindanao, one of the Phillipine islands, came up a fine breeze from 

 the northeast, which was attended with a shower of dust resembling 

 that of ashes. It came so thick that it obscured the moon and stars, 

 which were all out ver)^ clear before; it filled the sailors' eyes so full 

 that they were obliged to retreat from the deck below ; it lasted about 

 one hour, and cleared away. At daylight, the Niantic looked like an 

 old furnace, completely covered from the royal-mast-head down to 

 the water's edge. The decks 1 should judge one quarter of an inch 

 thick with the ashes ; we took up one half bushel, and might have 

 saved three or four. It fell in small quantities at different times for 

 two or three days after. On the 14th of April, spoke the English 

 barque Margaret, lohaler ; reported likewise on the 5th of April had 

 a similar shower of ashes, being at the time three hundred miles north 

 northeast from us ; he informed me that on the 12th of April, he vis- 

 ited several villages on the island of Madura entirely deserted by the 

 people, from one of which he had taken two brass cannon and seve- 

 ral other articles. This led us to think that some volcanic eruption 

 had lately happened in that neighborhood. After the 9th, perceived 

 no more iti proceeding northward. 



July 23d, 1840. 



* We conceive that this is not conclusive, for in all probability the sulphate of 

 lime, if it exists in the soil, is converted into carbonate by the alkaline carbonate 

 with which the soil is digested. — Eds. 



