364 Miscellanies. 



should this week arrive from New York of the formation of a public 

 company, for a similar purpose. It is expected that the passage 

 from Liverpool to New York, will be eiFected in twelve days. 



10. Volcanic eruption. — An interval of eleven days elapsed, be- 

 tween the appearance of the meteors in America, and the outbreak 

 of Bochet Kaba, a volcano of Palambang, Nov. 24, 1833. The 

 eruption was most dreadful ; the whole of Java was shaken by 

 earthquakes, with inundations from a lake on the mountain called 

 Telaga Ketjiel, which covered several hamlets to the depth of 

 twenty one feet, leaving a mud deposit, seven feet thick. Kaba is 

 one hundred and fifty miles from Palambang, and yet the water of 

 the great river Moessie was unfit to drink for weeks, owing to its 

 mephitic mixtures. As late as February, 1834, there were floods 

 and great rains, and Telo Mojo, a mountain of the province of Na- 

 jassinar, sank down in consequence. — Journ. dc la Haye. 



11. Diamond, matrix of, &fc. — Sir David Brewster states, (Lon- 

 don and Edin. Jour. Oct. 1835,) that Dr. Voysey has shown that 

 the matrix of the diamonds produced in southern India, is the sand- 

 stone breccia of the clay slate formation ; and that Captain Frank- 

 lin has found, that in Bundel Kund, the rocky matrix of the dia- 

 mond is situated in sandstone, which he imagines to be the same as 

 the new red sandstone of England; that there are at least four hun- 

 dred feet of that rock below the lowest diamond beds, and that 

 there are strong indications of coal underlying the whole mass. Sir 

 David Brewster, from certain cavities observed in diamond, and 

 from their effects in polarizing light, is led to conjecture, " that the 

 diamond originates, like amber, from the consolidation of, perhaps, 

 vegetable matter, which gradually acquires a crystalline form, from 

 the influence of time, and the slow action of corpuscular forces." 



12. Proceedings of the Fifth Meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion. — The London Atheneum of October 31, informs us that an ac- 

 count of the doings above named has been published by Mr. Hardy 

 of Dublin, in a handsome quarto, illustrated by maps, plans and 

 drawings. We are glad to hear that this volume has appeared so 

 early ; its predecessors have not appeared until a year after the re- 

 spective meetings. 



