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foreign Literature and Science. 345 
Volney, the French traveller and philosopher, died on 
the 22d of April last, aged sixty-three. 
New Alkalies—Two new vegetable Alkalies have been 
discovered by French Chemists, which they have named 
Brucine and Delphine. The first is found in what the 
discoverers (Pelletin and Coventon) call false Angustura 
bark, (Brucca Anti-dysenterica.) It crystallizes in oblique 
quadrangular prisms, colourless and transparent. It dis- 
solves in five hundred parts of boiling water, and in eight 
hundred and fifty of cold water. Its taste is exceedingly 
acrid and bitter. Administered in doses of a few grains it 
is poisonous. It forms neutral salts and bisalts, which 
crystallize with facility. 
Delphine was obtained by Lassaigne and Fenculle in the 
seeds of Staves Acre, (Delphinum Staphysagria.) It is 
crystalline when wet, but becomes opaque as it dries. Its 
taste is acrid and bitter. It melts by heat, and becomes 
hard and resinous. Itis not very soluble in water. It 
forms neutral salts with the acids. 
Count de Romanzow is fitting out at his Own expense 
an expedition which is to pass over the ice from Asia to 
America, to the north of Behring’s Straits ; and to ascend 
one of the rivers which disembogue on the western coast, 
in Russian America, in order to penetrate into the unknown 
tracts that lie between Icy Cape and the river Mackenzie. 
New Hydraulic Machine-—Mr. Clymer has mvented in 
London a pump ofa simple construction but powerful in 
its effects. It raises and discharges two hundred and fifty 
or three hundred gallons in a minute, not only of water but 
of stones and cther hard substances which are not too 
heavy. It is of easy transportation, and appears particu- 
larly well adapted to ships, cn account of its not being easily 
choked by sand, coffee, sugar, and other impediments. 
An Egyptian Society has been formed in London for 
the purpose of publishing Lithographic prints of all the 
Egyptian monuments of architecture and sculpture as well 
as of mummies and hieroglyphic inscriptions, in order, if 
possible, by a comparison of signs, to discover their mean- 
Ing. 
