14 



public, permission was granted to him to withdraw it from the 

 files of the Society for publication. 



Dr. Patterson read a letter from Professor Henry, of Prince- 

 ton, dated May 4, 1838, announcing that, in recent experi- 

 ments, he has produced directly from ordinary electricity, 

 currents by induction analogous to those obtained from gal- 

 vanism; and that he has ascertained that these currents possess 

 some peculiar properties, that they may be increased in inten- 

 sity to an indefinite degree, so that if a discharge from a 

 Leyden jar be sent through a good conductor, a shock may 

 be obtained from a contiguous but perfectly insulated conduc- 

 tor, more intense than one directly from the jar. Professor 

 Henry remarks that he has also found that all conducting sub- 

 stances screen the inductive action, and that he has succeeded 

 in referring this screening process to currents induced for a 

 moment in the interposed body. 



Dr. Hare exhibited to the Society fourteen and a half ounces 

 of platinum, fused by his hydro-oxygen blowpipe, and a speci- 

 men of pure platinum, freed from iridium by the process of 

 Berzelius. 



Dr. Patterson submitted to the Society's inspection the log- 

 book of the steam-ship Savannah, Capt. Moses Rogers, launched 

 at New York on the 22d of August, 1S18; from which it ap- 

 pears that, after repeated voyages between New York, Savan- 

 nah, and Charleston, this vessel left Savannah on the 24th or 

 25th of May 1819 for Liverpool, saw Land's End on the 

 17th of June, and arrived at Liverpool on the 20th of June, 

 having used steam thirteen days, and having exhausted her 

 fuel (coal) three days before arrival. It also appears from the 

 log-book that she left Liverpool on the 23d of July, arrived at 

 Elsineur on the 9th of August, left Elsineur on the 14th of 

 August, arrived at Stockholm on the 22d of August, left 

 Stockholm on the 5th of September, arrived at Cronstadt on 

 the 9th of September, and after several excursions between 

 Cronstadt, &c, and Copenhagen, &c, left Arundel, Copen- 

 hagen, on the 23d of October, and arrived at Savannah on the 

 30th of November; that she subsequently arrived at Washing- 

 ton from Savannah on the 16th of December, after a passage 

 of eleven days; that she was sold at Washington in September, 



