64 



THE EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



from local situation. The west wind, charged with moisture, and generally of ele* 

 rated temperature, on coming to the colder land air, deposits its humidity very rapidly. 

 The soil of Edinburghshire, too, is of a light porous nature, from the quality of the 

 prevailing strata; and its level aspect, removed from the immediate contact of high 

 mountain ranges, tends to preserve it from excess of humidity. The mean annual 

 temperature is 47'^ 31'. Snow seldom lies for any length of time, from its proximity 

 to the ocean. The winter temperature, then, like most parts of Scotland, is fully 

 inilder than that of England; while its summer heat is somewhat less. It has been 

 calculated that the mean annual temperature of Edinburgh is 3*^ less thau that of 

 London. 



That the nature of the prevailing strata, and the position of the country as regards 

 mountain ranges, has a very material effect on the climate, is evinced from the coun- 

 try ai'ound Aberdeen, and the higher parts of Banffshire. In this part of Scotland 

 the formation is primary, consisting of granite and its accompanying rocks. From 

 the compact, impenetrable nature of this basis, the rain water cannot sink downwards 

 by fissures and porosities, but remains on the surface till it again evaporates, or col- 

 lects, by numerous superficial rills, into rivers. Thus, the soil is continually moist 

 and cold, and so is the atmosphere around. The long range of Grampian mountains 

 that intersect the north of Scotland also terminate in this quarter; and their sum- 

 mits continually conduct along the atmospheric vapour, so that an additional quantity 

 is deposited on the soil. At Aberdeen, the annual fall of raia during the year 1829 

 was 23.66 inches, in 1830, 30.60 inches. The mean temperature of the same place, 

 from 1823 to 1830, was 47*^ 61'. 



The country immediately to the north (Morayshire) has a deep sandstone basis, 

 which is light and porous. It is also removed from the line of mountain ridges ; and, 

 accordingly, its cUmate is found to be much drier and warmer. The annual average 

 fall of rain at Fochabers, taking the mean of seven years, is twenty-sis inches. Mean 

 annual temperature, at same place, 47''; at Inverness, mean temperature 48*^. At 

 Elgin, the mean temperature for 1835 was 47*^ 6'; the mean fall of rain twenty-four 

 inches. 



The northern portion of Edinburghshire lies low, the general range being from 

 one to two hundred feet above the sea level; to the south it gradually rises to five hun- 

 dred and eight hundred feet. The extreme elevation of the Pentlands is 1879 feet. 



The meridian, as calculated at the Observatory on the Calton Hill, is S'* 11' 4". 

 W.L. — Rhind's Excursions J illustrative of the Geology and Natural History of the 

 Environs of Edinburgh. 



Falling or Shooting Stars are appearances everywhere observed. They are 

 probably the efiect of hydrogen gas more or less sulphuretted, for phosphorus is too 

 rapidly inflamed by the contact of the air to be capable of reaching so high an eleva- 

 tion. What seems to prove the hydro-sulphuretted origin of these meteors, is the 

 nature of the circumstances by which they are accompanied. These fires, we are 

 assured, often fail to the ground; and nothing is found at the place of their fall but 

 a fotid glutinous matter of a whitish colour, bordering upon yellow. Now, we know 

 that sulphuretted hydrogen gas holds sulphur in solution; that the hydrogen and the 

 sulphur do not burn at the same moment; that, consequently, the sulphurous part 

 may be precipitated to the earth, whilst the hydrogen, mixed with the oxygen of the 

 air, is kindled by a slight electric spark. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



The Hot Blast. — Lately there has been introduced into the great Iron Works 

 of Carron, and other founderies of Scotland, a method of smelting iron by means of 

 heated air, which has produced extraordinary changes in the manufacture of that 

 useful metal, well worthy the attention of English iron smelters, and also the minor 

 founderies which use iron. By the old method, for every ton of iron smelted, it 

 required on an average about eight Ions of coal, or a corresponding quantity of coke ; 

 while by the "hot blast" two tons are sufficient. If it shall be found that iron 

 smelted by this system is not subject to greater deterioration or brittleness than that 

 procured by the old process, the new mode will prove one of the greatest discoveries 

 in modem science, and highly important in a national point of view; for it is said that 

 the actual saving in the quantity of fuel required will be found in practice to be no 

 less than three hundred per cent. 



Subterraneous Sounds in Granite Rocks. — Humboldt was informed by 

 credible evidences, that subterraneous sounds, like those of an organ, are heard to- 

 wards sunrise, by those who sleep upon granite rocks on the banks of the Oroonoko. 

 He supposes them to arise from the difference of temperature between the external 

 air, and the air in the narrow and deep crevices of the shelves of rocks. During the 

 day, these crevices are heated to 48 or 50 degrees. The temperature of their sur- 

 face was often 39 degrees, when that of the air was only 28 degrees. Now, as this 

 difi'erence of temperature will be a maximum about sunrise, the current of air issu- 

 ing from the crevices will produce sounds which may be modified by its impulse 

 against the elastic films of mica that may project into the crevices. MM. Jomard, 

 Jollois, and Devilliers, heard at sunrise, in a monument of granite, placed at the 

 centre of the spot on which the palace of Karak stands, a noise resembling that of a 

 string breaking. 



Inflamsiable Gas. — When Mr Hughes was travelling in Greece he found, not 

 far from PolUna (the ancient ApoUonia) in Albania, a desert place, from the fis- 

 sures of whose surface an empyreumatic vapour arose, which took fire on the applica- 

 tion of a taper, and burnt for some time. From ruins, which he noticed near this 

 place, he inferred that they belonged to that oracle described by Dion Cassius, book 

 xii. p. 45. Mineral pitch abounds in the vicinity. In other sacred places of Greece, 

 as at Delphi and Dodona, where the ignorant were deceived by mineral vapours used 

 in their oracular contrivances, these vapours have now totally disappeared. In the 

 heights of Parnassus, where the remains of the Delphic oracles are found, the cele. 

 brated foramina (where carbonic acid rose from the fissure of the hmestone) have 

 been filled up : and in place of the springs with inflammable gas at Dodona, mention- 

 ed in Pliny's Natural History, vol. ii. p. 104, there is found at present near Joannina, 

 along with the remains of the temple, simply a marsh. 



Peat Mosses of Holland Destitute of coals, and without copse-wood, the 



Dutch have to depend on their veener or peat-mosses for fuel. There are two kinds 

 of these, the higher and the lower. The high mosses afford a layer of what is called 

 gray or dry peat. The upper bed of peat is generally about six feet in thickness ; it 

 seems to be composed rather of leaves and stems of reedy plants than of heath, or the 

 plants which commonly accompany heath ; and fragments of large branches of trees 

 have sometimes been found in it. Beneath this peat a thin blue clay commonly ap- 

 pears, and which, on the poat being removed, forms arable land. The low mosses 

 afford what are called mud-peats, and when these are taken from the inferior layer of 

 such moss, the excavation speedily becomes covered with water. When the under 

 stratum of moss is formed and contains wood, it is called derry. Many trunks of 

 trees occur in it ; and these uniformly lie with their heads pointing eastward, showing 

 that the storm or debacle which overwhelmed them had come from the west. Some 

 of the timber, oak in particular, remains sound, so that it can be used in carpentry ; 

 but it is of a dark colour, as if stained with ink : thus proving the amazing dura- 

 bihty of oak. There is a law in Holland against digging through this derry in the 

 lowest parts of the country, much water being found to ooze in the sand below, and 

 to be repressed by the compact layer of wood moss. 



Ignis Fatui, arising from the development of phosphoretted hydrogen, are necessarily 

 soon extinguished ; a succession of these fires will therefore appear to the spectator to 

 be one single flame, which moves with rapidity from place to place when we attempt 

 to approach it. The air driven on before us forces the lambent flame to recede. 

 There are other similar fires, which appear to be immoveablo when viewed from a 

 particular spot. There was one near Rettwick in Sweden, which was supposed to 

 issue from the mouth of a dragon that kept watch over some hidden treasures. A 

 simple miner ventured to sink a shaft, which discovered a cavern filled with sulphur- 

 ous pyrites and petroleum, the combustion of which had occasioned the phenomenon. 

 — (Memoires de I'Academie de Stockholm, 1740). 



Singular Heat developed in the Fusion of Tin and Platinum Mr 



Fox of Falmouth has found, that a very extraordinary degree of heat is developed by 

 fusing together platinum and tin in the following manner: — If a small piece of Tin- 

 foil be wrapped in a piece of Platinum-foil of the same size, and exposed upon char- 

 coal to the action of the blowpipe, the union of the two metals is indicated by a rapid 

 whirling, and by an extreme brilliancy in the light which is emitted. If the globule 

 thus melted be allowed to drop into a basin of water, it remains for some time red-hot 

 at the bottom; and such is the intensity of the heat, that it melts and carries off the 

 glaze of the basin from the part on which it happens to fall. 



Detonating Mud in South America. — Don Carlos del Pozo has discovered 

 in the Llanos of Monac, at the bottom of the Onebrada de Moroturo, a stratum of 

 clayey earth, which inflames spontaneously when slightly moistened, and exposed for 

 a long time to the rays of the tropical sun. The detonation of this muddy substance 

 is very violent. It is of a black colour, soils the fingers, and emits a strong smell of 

 sulphur. 



Hot Springs of La Trinchera. — The hot springs of La Trinchera are situate 

 three leagues from Valencia, and form a rivulet, which, in the seasons of the greatest 

 drought, is two feet deep, and eighteen feet wide. Their temperature is 93.3 cen- 

 tigrade, from which it appears that thay are the hottest in the world, excepting only 

 those of Urijins in Japan, which are asserted to be pure water at the temperature of 

 100 degrees. Eggs plunged in the Trinchera springs are boiled in four minutes. At 

 the distance of forty feet from them, other springs are found entirely cold. The hot 

 and the cold streams run parallel to each other; and the natives obtain baths of any 

 given temperature, by digging a hole between the two currents. 



Coral Reefs of the Pacific Ocean. — These are sometimes very extensive. 

 The inhabitants of Disappointment Islands and ihose of Duff's Group visit each 

 other by passing over long hues of reefs from island to island, a distance of 600 

 miles. While on their route, they appear Uke troops marching upon the surface of 

 the ocean. 



LIST OF NEW BOOKS ON NATURAL HISTORY, AND THE 

 PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 



Rhind's Excursions, illustrative of the Geology and Natural History of the Envi- 

 rons of Edinburgh, royal ISmo, 3s. 6d. boards; Loudon's Encyclopsedia of Plants, 

 new edition, 8vo. half-bound, L.3, 13s. 6d. ; Butterfly Collector's Vade-Mecum, 3d 

 edition, 5s. boards ; The Medico- Botanical Pocket-Book, by G. Spratt, 10s. 6d. 

 cloth ; Outlines of a Journey through Arabia- Petraga, the Edom of the Prophecies, 

 by M. Leon De Laborde, 8vo. with 6b plates and map, ISs. ; British Song Birds, 

 by Neville Wood, Esq. foolscap Bvo, 7s.; The Ornithologist's Text- Book, being 

 Reviews of Ornithological Works, pubhshed from A. D. 1678 to the present day, 

 with an Appendix, discussing various topics of interest connected with Ornithology, 

 by Neville Wood, Esq. 4s. 6d. ; Paley's Natural Theology, with Illustrative Notes 

 by Lord Brougham and Sir Charles Bell, 2 vols, post 8vo, with numerous wood 

 cuts, L.l, Is.; A Journey across the Andes and down the Amazon from Lima 

 to Para, by Lieut. Wm. Smyth, R.N. with U plates and maps, 8vo, 12s.; The 

 Horticultural Magazine and Miscellany of Gardening, by Robert Marnoch, No. I. 

 6d. ; Narrative of an Ascent to the Summit of Mont Blanc, with 3 illustrations by 

 M. Barry, M.D. 8vo, 4s. cloth ; Jacquemont's Journey in India, Thibet, Lahore, 

 and Cashmere, No. 12, price Is. completing the work ; Captain Back's Narrative of 

 the Arctic Land Expedition in 1833, 34, 35, 8vo, 30s. cloth ; Loudon's Arboretum 

 et Fruticetum Britannicum, No. 21, price 2s. 6d. ; G. P. Deshayes Traite Elemen- 

 taire de la Conchyliologie, liv. 1, 15 fr. cold. ; Ad. Brongniart, Histoire des Vege- 

 -taux Fossiles, 1836, liv. 10, 13 fr. 



— \ — 



Edinburgh: Published for the Proprietors, at their Office, 16, Hanover Street. 

 London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 65, Cornhill. Glasgow and the West of 

 Scotland: John Smith and Son, 70, St Vincent Street; and John Macleod, 

 20, Argyle Street. Dublin: W. F. Wakeman, 9, D'Olier Street. 



THE EDINBURGH PRINTING COMPANT. 



