404 Miscellanies. 



Is it not the same cause that acts upon the needle of the galva- 

 nometer, when the magnet which has been placed in the hehx at- 

 tached to the two ends of the multiplying wire is removed, in the 

 experiments of Faraday? Or the shock which a prepared frog feels, 

 when the circuit is broken as well as when it was first established, — 

 or, lastly, the magnetic spark, at the end of the spirals, not only at 

 the forming, but at the closing of the connexion ? 



Allow me also to repeat a remark of Dr. Keil, that if we take a 

 small magnetic bar, and holding it vertically, suspend a key from its 

 lower end, nearly as large as it can support, and while in this state, 

 if we apply to the upper end of the magnet ever so gently, a piece 

 of soft iron, the key immediately falls ; and yet keeping the Soft iron 

 still in contact with the magnet, the latter may represent the key 

 which it had just allowed to fall and it then takes it up again and 

 retains it even when the soft iron is removed, but lets it fall again on 

 a second contact. I have observed that the same effect does not en- 

 sue when the magnet is held horizontally, which induces me to sus- 

 pect the influence of terrestrial magnetism. — Bib. Univ. Jan. 1834. 



26. Necrology. — Dr. J. F. Coindet. — This distinguished Phy- 

 sician lately died at the age of fifty nine, after a long and severe 

 disease. His talents were manifest in the early part of his medi- 

 cal career. While at Edinburgh, where he prosecuted his studies, 

 he was nominated president of the royal Society of Medicine. Es- 

 tablished at Geneva in 1799, he soon become one of the most ac- 

 tive practioners of the city, and continued so until his death, having 

 filled with great zeal and success, the various posts of physician to 

 the Hospital, prisons, he. His numerous occupations did not divert 

 him from study. He prepared for a considerable period, the medi- 

 cal articles for the Bibhotheque Universelle, in which he published 

 a number of original memoirs. Among them was one on Hydren- 

 cephalus or Cephalite interne hydrencephalique. This memoir was 

 written in consequence of a premium offered by the Royal Medical 

 Society of Bordeaux, in 1815, for the best essay that should " ex- 

 pose the signs, causes, and treatment of internal hydrocephalis, sup- 

 ported by observation, experiment, and post mortem examination." 

 Its importance was sufficiently established by the fact of its being 

 crowned by the Society, and the author elected a corresponding mem- 

 ber. In 1820, Dr. C. published his Memoir on the discovery of a 

 new remedy for Goitre. This essay contributed much to his repu- 



