396 Miscellanies. 



the ova of these insects must have been about the apparatus. We 

 published at the time Mr, Crosse's experiments, and our views of the 

 nature of the results. 



Mr. Weekes' paper is a detailed account of the means employed to 

 insure perfect freedom from the presence of all organic life, in and 

 about the apparatus employed, and these means certainly seem to have 

 been as perfect as can be devised to effect this object. The solution 

 operated on was silicate of potassa, enclosed in an air-tight vessel of 

 glass, to which the electrical current passed. The operation of the 

 battery was continued during more than thirteen months. Two appa- 

 ratus precisely similar in all respects were employed, only that one 

 contained pure oxygen gas obtained from oxide of manganese at a red 

 heat, and the other common air. The experiment was begun Decem- 

 ber 3d, 1840, and says Mr. Weekes — 



" About the 16th of November, 1841, I observed that the silicate in the tumbler 

 had become much more transparent in its general appearance ; and, to me, it seemed 

 as though the greater portion of silicious matter previously held in solution, had 

 now been attracted to the negative pole. At this time I resolved to examine the 

 apparatus daily ; and, on the afternoon of the 25th November, while engaged in 

 using a microscope to the groups of spots or splashes as I have hitherto denomina- 

 ted them, and v/hich I now found to consist in an infinitude of extremely minute 

 pyramidal crystallizations of flinty quartz, I discovered five perfect insects, the 

 exact representatives of those which originally appeared in the Broomfield experi- 

 ments, crawling freely about on the inner surface of the bell glass : two were 

 full grown, the rest in a less forward state." 



We should be glad to republish Mr, Weekes' entire paper, but our 

 limits forbid. It is sufficient to say, that his experience proves in a 

 satisfactory manner the accuracy of Mr. Crosse's accounts, and that 

 the anomalous insects appeared from time to time and in consid- 

 erable numbers. We have, through the kindness of Mr. Lettsom, 

 been favored with a view of these remarkable creatures, and we find 

 them to correspond in form with the figures of Mr. Crosse, given by us 

 as above quoted. Truly, there are more things in heaven and earth 

 than are dreamt of in our philosophy. 



4. Remarks upon Mr. Murcliison's Anniversary Address before the 

 London Geological Society ; — extract of a letter from Prof, E, Hitch- 

 cock, of Amherst College, to the Editors, dated July 5th, 1842. — My 

 pleasure in reading Mr, Murchison's able Address at the anniversary 

 of the London Geological Society, in February last, has been greatly 

 diminished by finding, in the first place, that he supposes I have misun- 

 derstood his opinions respecting the glacier theory : in the second place, 

 by the certainty that he misunderstands mine. 



I freely acknowledge that my views respecting the glacier theory, 

 given in my Anniversary Address in Philadelphia, are so expressed as 



