General Notices. 95- 



by J. anil M. L., and with notes and additions by J. O. West- 

 wood, Esq., F.L.S., Secretary to the Entomological Society; 

 is in the press. 



Portraits of Oak Trees, and Studies of their Ramification and 

 Foliage, by G. K. Lewis, will shortly appear in folio numbers. 

 The portraits will represent the same trees in winter, when with- 

 out their leaves, and in autumn, when in full foliage. They will 

 all be taken from trees in the neighbourhood of Hereford (where 

 Mr. Lewis has been staying for the last eighteen months on 

 purpose), and chiefly from Tibberton Park, the seat of Henry 

 Lee Warner, Esq. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



Joyce's new Stove and economical Fuel. — Since we noticed tliis stove in our 

 former Number, p. 57., Mr. Joyce has taken out a patent, and has formed a 

 partnership with Mr. Harper of Cornhill. The stove has been exhibiting to 

 the private friends of Messrs. Harper and Joyce, and to some literary and 

 scientific men, three times a week; and it has been noticed in the Meclianic's 

 Magazine and the Literary Gazette for Jan. 13., the only public journals, as 

 far as we have observed, that have noticed it at all, except this Magazine. 

 The following are extracts from the notices referred to : — 



Joyce's new stove "is in the form of a tall urn, having a pipe runnino- en- 

 tirely through the centre, with a cap or valve at the top, to regulate the draft. 

 The urn is of thin bronze, and about 2 ft. high, and 8 in. in diameter. By the 

 combustion of the fuel inside, the metal continues at a dull red heat, and so 

 gives off the caloric to the surrounding air. The fuel is stated to be a vec^e- 

 table substance ; and one charge, in a stove of the above described dimensions, 

 will burn for 30 hours, and will cost Qd. No smoke or effluvia are produced. 

 (^Mechanic's Magazine, Jan. 13. 1838.) 



" New Mode of heating Rooms. — The puzzle which has been shown at the 

 Jerusalem Coffee House has set the wits of conjecturers at work upon the 

 nature of the particular fuel which, at so cheap a cost as a farthing an hour, 

 is to warm a room. Of these conjectures we have heard two. The first is, that 

 the gardener who discovered the fuel which enabled him to keep up the fire whilst 

 he slept must have used old tanner's bark, as it was the only fuel accessible 

 in a hot-house. The other is, that charcoal is the base, and lime employed to 

 absorb the carbonic acid gas. Gipsies are in the habit of using the ashes of 

 their fires, raked together in a heap, and sprinkled with lime. This will burn 

 throughout the night, and no deteriorating gas is evolved to distress the 

 sleepers in the gipsy tent." {^Literary Gazette, Jan. 13. 1838.) 



Mr. Joyce's patent is dated Dec. 16. 1837; and the time for giving in the 

 specification to the Patent Office is hmited to six months from that date. It 

 will not be before our July Number, therefore, that we can make our readers 

 acquainted with the secret of the kind of fuel and the mode of burning; but, 

 in the mean time, we may state that the conjecture as to the fuel consisting 

 of charcoal and lime, which was made by Mr. Sylvester, the engineer, in the 

 Horticultural Society's meeting-room, when the stove was first exhibited there, 

 is by far the most plausible. 



On the Formation of Mould. — At a meeting of the Geological Society on 

 Nov. 1., a paper was read on this subject by C. Darwin, Esq., F.G.S. The 

 author commenced by remarking on the two most striking characters, by 

 which the superficial layer of vegetable mould is distinguished. These are, 

 its nearly homogeneous nature, although overlying different kinds of subsoil ; 



