382 Bibliography. 



12. Boston Journal of Natural History, containing papers and 

 covununications read before the Boston Society of Natural History. 

 Vol. Ill, No. 4. Boston : Little & Brown. 1840-41.— Our readers 

 have been well apprised of the sound progress of the society, whose 

 last published transactions stand at the head of this notice. One of 

 the best evidences of useful activity in a scientific society, is the regu- 

 lar publication of valuable memoirs on those departments of the great 

 field in which its labors are prosecuted. The stated meetings of such 

 bodies are very interesting and important to those who have the good 

 fortune to live within the sphere of their influence. But to naturalists, 

 occupying distant and isolated positions, publications of the above char- 

 acter are the only symptom of vitality, and are welcomed as the evi- 

 dence of good deeds done, and the earnest of better things to come. 



The articles contained in the present number, are a continuation of 

 Dr. Amos Binney's monograph of the Helices of the United States, 

 with plates : Further notices of some New England lichens, by Ed- 

 ward Tuckerman, Jr., LL. B : Attempts to ascertain some of the 

 hepatic mosses of Massachusetts, with remarks, by Rev. John Lewis 

 Russell : Descriptions of the fishes of the Ohio river and its tributaries, 

 by Jared P. Kirtland — continued, (with plates :) Results of an exam- 

 ination of the shells of Massachusetts, and their geographical distribu- 

 tion, by Augustus A. Gould, M. D. — (vid. notice of this able memoir 

 in our present number.) In addition to the above, the number con- 

 tains the constitution and by-laws of the society, with a list of members 

 and officers of the society, additions to the library, and an index of the 

 contents of the third volume of the Journal, of which this is the con- 

 cluding number. 



13, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinhurgh. Vol. XV, 

 Part I. Edinburgh, 1841, 4to, pp. 263. — This part of the Royal So- 

 ciety of Edinburgh's Transactions contains that remarkable paper by 

 Dr. Samuel Brown, of Edinburgh, on the decomposition of substances 

 heretofore considered elementary, or the transmuting of one substance 

 into another by the aid of heat and pressui-e. It may be remembered, 

 that we noticed this paper in our last, (see this Vol. p. 208,) having 

 received an early copy in proof, and then expressed the intention of 

 republishing the article entire, but our engagements to home corres- 

 pondents have prevented its appearance in the present number. 



Dr. J. K. Mitchell has since informed us orally that he has, in con- 

 nection with Mr. Clarke Hare, of Philadelphia, repeated all the experi- 

 ments of Dr. Brown, step by step, with an apparatus made exactly ac- 

 cording to his description ; and although the repeated experiments were 

 conducted in the most careful manner, the results stated by Dr. Brown 



