24 



THE EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



culinary purposes, it is certainly invaluable ; being in perfection wben ap- 

 ples become tough, and before gooseberries have made their appearance. 

 Its flavour is so delicate, that it ought not to be mixed with any other in- 

 gredient than sugar; and on no account should it be peeled. 



This rhubarb may be propagated either by sowing the seeds, or pur- 

 chasing young roots of one year's growth, and planting them during the 

 spring months in a good rich soil. In the former case, they are to be 

 transplanted in a few weeks, and in the following year their stalks will be 

 large enough to pull. If the roots obtained be planted in March, the plot 

 will be available in a month or six weeks. No further care is requisite 

 than to manure the bed in autumn. As soon as the growth becomes 

 vigorous, each root sends up a flower-stalk, which will readily be distin- 

 guished from the leaf-stalks ; these must be pulled away, and only one 

 left, (if it be intended to procure seed,) and this plant should be used little 

 or none during the season. The leaves are enormous, many being four 

 feet long and three and a half wide. The roots, too, are gigantic, — so 

 large, that in the course of three or four years, a single root will fill a 

 wheelbarrow; hence the plants require a wide space — say five feet apart 

 each way Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, i}c. June 1839. 



ELECTRICITY. 



THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. 



In a late Number we supplied an extract from M. Arago's most interest- 

 ing Treatise on Thunder and Lightning, promising to return to the sub- 

 ject. Strongly would we advise those who have it in their power to re- 

 fer to the more original sources, whence they will derive much informa- 

 tion and amusement. We have room for only one short extract, which 

 will be devoted to the question — 



" Does Lightning strike before it becomes visible 1 — I much question," 

 says the illustrious Frenchman, " whether any natural philosopher has, 

 for some years, hazarded publicly to propose the question at the head of 

 this section. During this period it has been supposed that nothing could, 

 by possibility, be more rapid than Light. A well determined velocity 

 of eighty thousand leagues a second appeared so astonishing, that the 

 imagination never ventured to think of going further. The experiments, 

 however, of Mr Wheatstone will probably effect a change upon this point. 

 These have, in truth, I will not say demonstrated, but they have at least 

 led us to conceive the possibility of even greater velocities than that of light ; 

 and that in a substance, whose identity with Lightning a hundred com- 

 parisons tend to establish. The suspicion, then, announced at the head 

 of this chapter, merits investigation in a theoretical point of view. Me- 

 teorology must gain by the inquiry ; and I imagine the problem has a re- 

 lation, on some points, to physiology. Finally, it appears to me that 

 many timid individuals will be spared many poignant moments duiing 

 Thunder-storms, were it proved that nothing is to be apprehended when 

 the flash has been seen. 



" Mr Thomas Olivey, a farmer in Cornwall, who was knocked un- 

 conscious to the ground by a fearful thunderbolt, on the 20th of Decem- 

 ber 1752, so little heard the noise, or perceived the light of the meteor, 

 that in coming to himself at the end of a quarter of an hour, his first in- 

 quiry was, Who had struck him ? A man was struck with Lightning near 

 Bitche, on the 11th of June 1757. After being for a time asphyxiated, 

 he was asked, on returning to consciousness, by the Abbe Chappe, What 

 had been the nature of his sensations? when he answered, I heard no- 

 thing, / saw nothing. The rector of Saint-Keverne, in Cornwall, Mr 

 Anthony Williams, was struck on the 18th of February 1770, by the 

 same thunderbolt which did so much damage in the parish church. On 

 recovering, after having been long in a fainting state, he declared he had 

 neither seen the Lightning nor heard the Thunder. Mr Luke Howard in- 

 terrogated one of two gardeners who were thrown unconscious to the 

 ground, in a country house in the neighbourhood of Manchester. This 

 individual, George Bradbury, positively declared that he had neither heard 

 the Thunder nor seen the Lightning at the moment of the accident. On 

 the 11th of July 1819, a thunderbolt broke upon the church of Chateau- 

 neuf-les-Moutiers, near Digne, in the Department of the Low Alps ; it 

 killed nine and wounded eighty-two persons. Among these last was the 

 curate of Moutiers ; he was taken up completely asphyxiated ; his surplice 

 was in flames. He revived two hours after the accident, and declared 

 ' that he had heard nothing, and knew nothing of all that had passed.' 

 Mr Rockwell, who was struck with Lightning in August 1821, had neither 

 seen the Lightning nor heard the noise. H. N. Reeves, a workman, who, 

 in June 1829, was labouring on the steeple of Salisbury, fell down uncon- 

 scious immediately after a vivid flash of Lightning : when he awakened 

 from his deep unconsciousness, he stated that he did not perceive the Light- 

 ning at the moment of his fall." — Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 

 January 1839. 



GEOLOGY. 



Geology as prosecuted in Russia Some idea of the activity of the 



Russians in pursuit of Science, and especially that of Geology, may be 



MISCELLANIES. 



Origin or Lithography. —Fifty years ago, there lived at Munich a 

 poor fellow, by name Aloys Senefelder, who was in so little repute as an 

 author and artist, that printers and engravers refused to publish his works 

 at their own charges, and so set him upon some plan to do without their 

 aid. In the first place, Aloys invented a certain kind of ink which would 

 resist the action of the acid that is usually employed by engravers, and 

 with this he made his experiments upon copper-plates as long as he could 

 afford to purchase them. He found that to write upon the plates back- 

 wards, after the manner of engravers, required much skill and many trials, 

 and he thought that were he to practise upon any other polished surface 

 — a smooth stone, for instance, the least costly article imaginable — he 

 might spare the expense of the copper until he had sufficient skill to use 

 it. One day, it is said, that Aloys was called upon to write — rather a 

 humble composition for an author and an artist — a washing bill. He had 

 no paper at hand, and so he wrote out the bill with some of his newly 

 invented ink, upon one of his Kilheim stones. Some time afterwards he 

 thought he would try and take an impression of his washing bill — he did, 

 and succeeded. Senefelder invented lithography. — Westm. Rev. 



Edinburgh: Published for the Proprietor, at the Office, No. 13, Hill Street. 

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

 Scotland: John Smith and Son ; and Jchn SIacleod. Dublin: Georgs 

 Young. Paris : J. B. Balliere, Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, No. 13 bis. 



THE EriNB'.'SeH pbiwting company. 



gathered from the following statements. The inspector-in-chief of the 

 mines, the Count Cancrina, has for several years obtained His Imperial 

 Majesty's permission to make geological and mineralogical researches in 

 various parts of this vast empire, and a scientific committee has been estab- 

 lished to superintend the publication of a work entitled " Annals of the 

 Russian Mines." M. Parrot, professor at the University of Dorpat, was 

 ordered by the Russian Government to explore Armenia and Transcau- 

 casia, and he placed his barometer at the top of Mount Ararat, which he 

 found to be of volcanic formation. M. Kupffer has determined the height 

 of Elbrous, the culminating point of the Caucasian chain, and is at this 

 moment making meteorological and magnetic observations throughout the 

 empire. Baron de Humboldt and M. Rose have traversed the northern 

 mountains. M. de Pusch has described the chalk formation in the 

 south of Poland, M. Pander those of the neighbourhood of St Peters- 

 burgh ; M. Dubois de Montpereux has for years been devoted to the same 

 researches in Caucasia, the Crimea, and Podolia, and M. de Verneuil has 

 also visited the Crimea. M. de Semenoff, principal engineer of mines, 

 has described the geological formation of the northern part of the Altai 

 Mountains, the central crest of which is composed principally of granite, 

 and granitoid syenite, which are often at the base adjoining to mica slate. 

 The lower regions are marly and covered with forests, which disappear in 

 the regions of eternal snow, and from the alluvial soils which load tho 

 shallows and beds of the rivers, gold is now plentifully extracted by wash- 

 ing. M. Amixine has thrown light on the western ramification of the 

 chain of the Jablonowoe, in Eastern Siberia, in which granite and mica 

 slate predominate, and a formation of porphyry of fifteen square leagues 

 is on all sides surrounded by granite mountains of great elevation. In this 

 same chain M. FilefFalso found red sandstone, dioiite, and a trachitic for- 

 mation. The Altai' and Aral seem, however, to have been most explored, 

 from the rubies which they present. Not only have they rich veins of 

 gold, but lead, and garnets, tourmalines, topazes, amethysts, aquamarines, 

 and the finest emeralds. On the coast of the Caspian Sea are hills, which 

 contain an abundance of fossil shells, and strata of gypsum and rock 

 salt. A great extent of coal is found in the chain of Donetz, and in the 

 government of Karkoff. — Athenaeum, April 1839. 



Sdbterranean Caverns at Chudleigh A curious discovery of a 



range of caverns was made last week in Chudleigh Rock, in conse- 

 quence of a Terrier Dog getting into a fissure in pursuit of a Rabbit. 

 The Dog was heard at various times to bark for more than a week ; and 

 as it was almost impossible to extricate him, it was attempted to destroy 

 him by burning brimstone. On the fifteenth day after the Dog's entomb- 

 ment, his moans were plainly heard by many persons, when a further en- 

 deavour was made, in vain, to extricate him. A lad on the following 

 day had the courage, with a rope affixed to him and two lanterns, to en- 

 ter the chasms ; and after two hours, working a passage of twenty feet, he 

 descended into a dry chamber, about thirty feet square and sixty-three 

 feet below the opening, where he found the Dog dead, but still warm. 

 From an aperture in this cavern gushed a stream of air leading into an- 

 other cavern, which is supposed to be still deeper, as the boy had not 

 rope enough to descend. This range of caverns is beneath those where 

 Professor Buckland many years since discovered some extraordinary ante- 

 diluvian remains. 



