166 



The following donations were received: — 



FOR THE LIBRARY. 



Gradmessung in Ostpreussen und ihre Verbindung mit Preussischen 

 und Russischen Dreiecksketten ; ausgeftihrt von F. W. Bessel, 

 Director der Konigsberger Sternwarte u. s. w. — From the Au- 

 thor. 



Address at the Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Colonization 

 Society, Nov. 11, 1839. By R. R. Gurley. Philadelphia, 1839. 

 From Mr. Elliot Cresson. 



FOR THE CABINET. 



A Donation of Mastodon Bones, procured by a subscription of mem- 

 bers of the Society ; — the head perfect. 



Drs. Horner and Hays were appointed a Committee to report 

 a description of the same. 



Mr. Henry Seybert, at the time in Paris, transmitted to the 

 Society a specimen of the Daguerreotype. 



Mr. Du Ponceau made a verbal communication respecting 

 the publication of the Cochin Chinese Dictionary of the late 

 Bishop of Adran, and also of a Latin and Cochin Chinese Dic- 

 tionary by the Bishop of Isauropolis, and announced that the 

 Grammar of the Berber language, by M. Venture, was about 

 to be published. 



Dr. Hare produced a remarkably beautiful specimen of po- 

 tassium, in the globular form, assumed by falling into naphtha. 



This specimen was a part of the product of one process which 

 yielded him six ounces, two hundred and sixty-three grains, avoirdu- 

 pois. 



The process, and the apparatus by which this large amount of po- 

 tassium was procured, had been described in the last volume of the 

 Society's Transactions. 



The quantity of materials employed, was 8 lbs. cream of tartar, 

 reduced to 47 oz., by carbonization ; and 3 oz. of coarsely powdered 

 charcoal, from which the finer part had been sifted. 



Notwithstanding the employment of a tube of two inches in diame- 

 ter, it became choked with the potassium, carbon, and other volatile 

 products, which were sublimed; and in the effort to open a passage, 

 a steel rod, employed for this purpose, became so firmly fastened as 

 to render its extrication impracticable by the force of two men. 



