44 



THE EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



metres. They extract the whole vein, which, after being distilled, yields ten per cent. 

 of mercury. 



The Mercury produces fatal effects on the industrious miners, most of whom, in 

 the prime of life, present a deadly aspect. These miners possess highly honourable 

 cnaracters, and are gentle and discreet in their manners. 



247 fathoms, upon the same principle as he graduated the portable gas pressure 

 gauges, which have proTed remarkably accurate. By means of this instrument th« 

 greatest depth of the ocean may be ascertained with precision. 



GEOLOGY. 



Inflammable Gas aiiisin"G after boring for Salt. — In Jameson's Philoso- 

 phical Journal it is stated, that from a Salt Mine at Rheine, in Germany, an uninter- 

 rupted current of inflammable gas has issued for upwards of sixty years ; which is used, 

 not only for Ught, but also for cooking. In the United States of America currents of 

 inflammable gas are frequently to be met with, issuing from perforations in rocks which 

 have been bored for salt water. The following are some of the instances mentioned 

 in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New York : — 



In the year 1824, while a company were boring through a rock in Elk Creek, Ohio, 

 at the depth of 24 feet the miners penetrated to a vein of very cold water, somewhat 

 brackish to the taste. At the distance of 116 feet they passed through a rich vein of 

 copper ore, of about three feet in thickness; and at 180 feet they opened a powerful 

 vein of air, w^hich instantly found vent at the top of tlie shaft or well which they were 

 sinking, and a loud roaring and spouting of water, to the height of 30 feet into the 

 atmosphere. For some distance round this perpendicular jet of water plays a gas, so 

 inflammable in its nature as instantly to take fire whenever a torch is applied to it. 

 The verge of the circumference of this gas is not perceptible ; therefore those who 

 are unacquainted with its inflammable quality have found themselves enveloped in flame 

 when attempting to set it on fire. The intervals between the spouting are irregular 

 and uncertain. 



Mr Denton mentions, that, "while boring for salt, in the year 1824, about three miles 

 from the village of Sparta, in Tennessee, he hit upon a vein of gas, which in ascend- 

 ing found another vent than the tube, through the natural fissure of a rock in the bed 

 of the Calf- Killer river," forcing a passage through the superincumbent waters, which 

 produced great commotion round the place of escape. A lighted torch being applied, 

 a column of fire, nearly 40 feet high, ascended from nearly the centre of the river, 

 which was about 50 yards wide at that place. Mr Denton met with a similar pheno- 

 menon, on the following year, a short distance below the same place. The well was 

 situate on the margin of the river. A bore three inches in diameter was perforated 

 in the limestone rock to the depth of 400 feet ; the salt water was forced by the gas 

 through the hole in the rock, in which was placed a tube, the upper end of which 

 was composed of copper, to the extent of 50 feet above the surface of the rock: at 

 the distance of 45 feet a copper faucet. was inserted into the wooden tube, and into 

 another of the same kind, standing two feet apart from the first one. The salt water 

 forced up was conducted by the copper faucet into the second tube, from whence it 

 descended 25 feet to a cistern holding 25,000 gallons. While the water was escap- 

 ing from the first to the second tube, the gas passed up to the top of the first tube — 

 and, upon a lighted candle being applied, it immediately ignited, and flashed up in a 

 flame from 20 to 30 feet in perpendicular height. This place is encircled on three sides 

 by high mountains, which were pai-tly illuminated by this jet of gas, and produced an 

 effect at once magical and sublime. 



METEOROLOGY. 



Greatest Ascents in the Atmosphere. — On the J6th of December 1831, M. 

 Boussingault, in company with Colonel Hall, ascended Chimborazo, to the height of 

 19,699 feet, which is the greatest terrestrial elevation yet accomplished. Baron Hum- 

 boldt was unable to reach a greater height than 19,400 feet. M. Gay Lussac 

 ascended in a balloon from Paris, and obtained an elevation of 22,900 feet. The 

 barometer used by Boussingault fell to 13 inches 8 lines. He found the temperature 

 in the shade was 7.86 (46.6 of Fah.) He conceives it possible for a human being to 

 live in rarified air. It would thus appear, that at a height nearly equal to that of 

 Mount Blanc, where Saussure felt such oppression that he was hardly able to consult 

 his instruments, young females may be seen, in South America, dancing the whole 

 ni^ht. During the War of Independence, the celebrated battle of Pichinca was 

 fouo-ht at a height little less than that of Mount Rose. Saussure was informed by 

 his o^uides that they had seen stars in broad day ; but Boussingault never observed 

 them, although he reached a much greater altitude. 



GENERAL SCIENCE. 

 Submarine Register Barometer, to be used as ak ordinary Deep 

 Sea-Lead. —Mr Payne of the Adelaide Street Gallery of Practical Science, has 

 made and proved the use of an instrument bearing this name. The accuracy with 

 which the mercury rises in descents, and its fall in ascents, has been sufficiently 

 proved by the use of the Barometer ; and more recently, by that admirable instru- 

 ment invented by Mr Adie of Edinburgh, denominated the Sympiesometer, for de- 

 noting the heights of mountains and depths of valleys. The invention of Mr Payne, 

 however, differs in many respects from these ; but he proposes measuring depths at 

 sea by its means. It is constructed of a tube of glass (or it may be made of iron), 

 rendered tight at top, and the tube then filled with one atmosphere of air or of hydro- 

 gen gas. The pressure of the water upon the surface of the mercury in the cistern, 

 is similar to the pressure of the atmosphere upon the surface of the mercury in the 

 Sympiesometer and common Barometer; but in IMr Payne's instrument, the water 

 is prevented from coming in actual contact with the mercury, by the intervention of 

 a piece of fine membrane. The compression of the air in the tube is indicated by a 

 float, somewhat similar to that of the register Thermometer. The glass tube is 

 graduated in atmospheres, and tenths of atmospheres, and also by tables of correc- 

 tions for temperature, saltness of water, and the depth to whioh the instrument has 

 sunk, — all of which can be accurately ascertained in fathoms or pounds weight. 

 Tills Barometer has been graduated by Mr Gordon from 1 to 45 atmospheres, or 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Fields of Polar Ice. — Of the inanimate productions of Greenland, none, per- 

 haps, excites so much interest and astonishment, in a stranger, as the Ice in its 

 great abundance and variety. The stupendous masses known by the names of Ice- 

 Islands, Floating- Mountains, or Icebergs, common to Davis* Straits, and sometimen 

 met with here, from their height, various forms, and the depth of water in which they 

 ground, are calculated to strike the beholder with wonder; yet the fields of ice, more 

 peculiar to Greenland, are not less astonishing. Their deficiency in elevation is suf- 

 ficiently compensated by their amazing extent of surface. Some of them have been 

 observed near a hundred miles in length, and more than half that breadth; each con- 

 sisting of a single sheet of ice, having its surface raised in general four or six feet 

 above the level of the water, and its base depressed to the depth of near twenty feet 

 beneath. 



The occasional rapid motion of fields, with the strange effects produced on any 

 opposing substance, exhibited by such immense bodies, is one of the most striking 

 objects this country presents, and is certainly the most terrific. They not unfre- 

 quently acquire a rotatory movement, whereby their circumference attains a velocity 

 of several miles per hour. A field thus in motion coming in contact with another at 

 rest, or more especially with a contrary direction of movement, produces a dreadful 

 shock. The weaker field is crushed with an awful noise; sometimes the destruction 

 is mutual; pieces of huge dimensions and weight are not unfrequently piled upon the 

 top, to the height of twenty or thirty feet, whilst doubtless a proportionate quantity 

 is depressed beneath. The view of those stupendous effects in safety, exhibits a pic- 

 ture sublimely grand; but where there is danger of being overwhelmed, terror and 

 dismay must be the predominant feelings. 



On arriving at the point of collision, between two immense bodies of ice, I discovered 

 that already a prodigious mass of rubbish had been squeezed upon the top, and that 

 the motion had not abated. The fields continued to overlay each other with a majes- 

 tic motion, producing a noise resembling that of complicated machinery, or distant 

 thunder. The pressure was so immense that numerous fissures were occasioned, and 

 the ice repeatedly rent beneath my feet. In one of the fissures I found the snow on 

 the level to be three and a half feet deep, and the ice upwards of twelve. In one 

 place hummocks had been thrown up to the height of twenty feet from the surface of 

 the field, and at least twenty-five feet from the level of the water; they extended 

 fifty or sixt:y yards in length, and fifteen in breadth, forming a mass of about two 

 thousand tons in weight. The majestic unvaried movement of the ice, the singular 

 noise with which it was accompanied, the tremendous power exerted, and the wonderful 

 effects produced, were calculated to excite sensations of novelty and grandeur in the 

 mind of even the most careless spectator. 



Sometimes these motions of the ice may be accounted for. Fields are disturbed 

 by currents, the wind, or the pressure of other ice against them. Though the set of 

 the current be generally towards the south-west, yet it seems occasionally to vary; the 

 wind forces all ice to leeward with a velocity nearly in the inverse proportion to its 

 depth under water; light ice consequently drives faster than heavy ice, and loose ice 

 than fields ; loose ice meeting the side of a field in its course becomes deflected, and 

 its re-action causes a circular motion of the field. Fields may approximate each 

 other from three causes ; first, if the lighter ice be to windward, it will, of necessity, 

 be impelled towards the heavier; secondly, as the wind frequently commences blow- 

 ing on the windward side of the ice, and continues several hours before it is felt a 

 few miles distant to leeward, the field begins to drift before the wind can produce any 

 impression on ice, on its opposite side; and thirdly, which is not an uncommon case, 

 by the two fields being impelled towards each other by winds acting on each from 

 opposite quarters. 



The closing of heavy ice, encircling a quantity of bay ice, causes it to nm together 

 with such force that it overlaps wherever two sheets meet, until it sometimes attains 

 the thickness of many feet. Drift-ice does not often coalesce with such a pressure 

 as to endanger any ship which may happen to be beset in it; when, however, land 

 opposes its drift, or the ship is a great distance immured amongst it, the pressure is 

 sometimes alarming. — Scoreshy. 



LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



Effects of Earthquakes.. — At a meeting of the " Geological Society," on the 

 2d December 1835, a communication was read from Lieutenant Bowers, R.N., stat- 

 ing that he did not observe any change produced on the coast of Chile, or on the 

 relative level of the sea and land, by the earthquake which took place on that coast in 

 November 1822. He %vas at Valparaiso in 1822, and in February 1823. 



A letter was afterwards read from Mr Gumming, who was at Valparaiso during 

 the earthquake, and for some years after, which agreed with the testimony of Lieut. 

 Bowers. Mr Gumming is a collector of shells; and from his frequent and minute 

 investigations, must have noted any variation. 



A paper was then read from Mr Parish, Sec. Geological Society, containing a 

 historical account of the effects produced by earthquake waves on the coast of the 

 Pacific Ocean ; from which it appeared that heavy inundations of the ocean accom- 

 panied many of the earthquakes which have laid waste the western coast of South 

 America since the year 1590. 



Edinburgh: Published for the Proprietors, at their OfBcc, 16^ Hanover Street 

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