282 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



[1854. 



ltoytU Sooloty of Literature. 



At tho in -i meot'u rthia ocicty, Mr, \ mix read a paper, communi- 



cated in him by Captain Ormsby, of tlic Cndian navy, "On the name 

 given by Pharaoh to the Patriarch .1" oph." Tin objeel ol l iptain 

 i > i- 1 1 1 by' paper was to show that tho translation in the margin of our 

 Bibles ol the name "Zaphnath Paancah " (the title conferred upon 

 Joseph,) viz., " Rovealer of secrets," was not confirmed bj the analysis 



of the name itself; but that, on il thor band, a much more natural 



one was discoverable. Captain I Irmsby remarked that there wo nothing 

 in the sacred narrative thai would lead us i" suppose thai the patri- 

 nrch either became himself a Pharonh, or was deified ae Hermes, as some 

 have supposed. Ii is quite clear that Pharoah did nol lose sight of the 

 fact thai Joseph was a foreigner, and, as such, an abomination to the 

 native population, while we know that after his death, though he wo 

 embalmed after the fashion of Egypt, he was not placed in any of tho 

 chambers of the Egyptian dead, bul was eventually conveyed to 

 tho land from whence ho came. His positon and rank were, 

 however, secured to him by his investiture with the collar and 

 raiment of fine linen, and by the reception of the royal signet 

 ring, which was placed upon his finger; but still more so by 

 his marriage with the daughter of the high priest of On the (Ile- 

 liopolis of the Greeks, and one of the most sacred of the ancient 

 cities of Egypt,) and by his subsequent naturalization, which was com- 

 pleted by a change of name — a custom then prevalent in Egypt, us it 

 is still throughout the Oriental world. Captain I Irmsliy then proceeded 

 to reduce the words "Zaphnath Paancah" to their equivalents in hicro- 

 glyphical consonants, and showed, by a comparison of words in the 

 '• Book of the Dead," that they may be interpreted " The sustainer of 

 life," or " The support of Pharaoh." The same result he proved to 

 follow from an analysis of the title as spelt in the Septuagint. 



Artificial Pearls. 



The artificial production of pearls from the mussle fish is carried on 

 to a great extent atHooehow. The fish are collected in April or May, 

 and are opened by children, who place a small bit of bamboo in the 

 orifice to keep the shells apart. A piece of brass or bone, a small 

 pebble, or a pellet of mud, is then introduced, a dose from 3 to 5 

 spoonfuls of fish-scales pounded and mixed with water is poured in, 

 and the stick removed. The fish are then placed a few inches apart in 

 ponds, the water in which is from 3 to 5 feet deep, and which are well 

 manured with night soil four or five times every year. In these ponds 

 the fish are allowed to remain from ten months to three years. Upon 

 taking them out, the shell is cut through with a fine saw, the pearl is 

 separated from the shell,' and the pellet, or other substance within it, 

 extricated. It is then filled with white wax, and a piece of the shell 

 carefully attached to conceal the aperture. Several millions of pearls 

 are thus produced annually, which find a market at Hoochow, and are 

 worth from about a penny to eight pence a pair. Whole villages are 

 engaged iu their production, and some 5,000 people are said to gain a 

 livelihood by the trade. The process was discovered in the 13th cen- 

 tury by a native of Hoochow, named Ye-jin, to whose memory a temple 

 was erected, in which festivities are still observed in his honour. The 

 Canton process of making pearls does not succeed at Hoochow, nor does 

 the Hoochow method prosper with the Canton people, who are in gen- 

 eral so sucessful. There would seem, therefore, to be some peculiarity 

 in the fish or climate of Hoochow, for, so far as can be learned, Hoochow 

 js the only place in China where the process is carried on. 



On the Ammonia contained in Rain-water. — M. Boussingault has 

 continued at his country seat at Liebfrauenberg (Lower Rhine) his re- 

 searches mentioned in the November number of this Journal. From his 

 new investigations it appears that rain of the Country contains less ammonia 

 than that of the city, and that the ammonia is more abundant at the begin- 

 ing than at the end of a shower. 



Boussingault has examined also the dew. and. found it always to contain 

 ammonia. The proportions, by several trials, were 6 milligrams to the litre ; 

 but the amount is reduced to 1-02 after a rainy day. On the 14th to the 

 16th of November a thick mist prevailed, so rich in ammonia, that the 

 water had an alkaline reaction ; a litre of the water contained about 2 

 pecigrams of carbonate of ammonia. Seventv-five rains (including the 

 dew and mist) examined by Boussingault between the 26th of May and the 



sili ,,i Novembet d, as a mean, half a milligram of ammonia. 



'I hi ' it quantity Ionia contained in ihi oi i p] ti n -:mgin 



its bearing on vegetable pathology : in I nonia in small 



quantity > favon to vi a la , rould be injm 



ami would shew il - (Tei ! i pi cL th ol flowers. > 



such a storm might hai e a deleti i spe- 



cially on tin.- lungs of persons with pulmonar) affections. — Sill. ./our. 



Statistical Society. — I.onhon Dee. 19.— The Rev. Wyatl | 

 V. P., in the chair, •■'in the Duration of Life among Medical Men,' 

 by In-. Guy. — The author stated that the sources whence he di 

 the facts which had been employed in obtaining the avcraj 



■ i lim-d in this communication, were: — 1. The ages at death of 



such English medical men, chielh physician- and surgeons, as had by 

 their writings and high i I reputation secured for them- 



Bclves a [dace in the pages of Chalmer Biographical Dictionary; — 2. 

 Tho ages at death of such English modi,:,! men (also chiefly pi 

 icians and surgeons) as have round a place in the less sdict obi- 

 tuaries of the Annual Register, from 1758 to 1848 j — and 8. The 

 ages at death of English .Medical n (chiefly physicians and sur- 

 geons) recorded in the pages of the Biographical Dictionary up to the 

 year 1815, added to the ages at death recorded in the obituaries of 

 the .Animal Register from that date up to the year 1852 inclusive. The 

 object of combining the facts derived from these two sources was to 

 bring the data down to the latest period as well a- to increase the number 

 of individual facts from which the average results were to be deduced; 

 and he drew the following general conclusions from them : — 1st. That 

 the duration of life is greater among physicians and surgeons than 

 among the general practitioners of medicine and surgery : — 2nd. 

 That this greater longevity of physicians and surgeons is only in part 

 explained by a less amount of exposure to contagious diseases and 

 other professional risks ; — 3rd. that the duration of life of members of 

 the medical profession (being chiefly physicians and surgeons,) docs 

 not differ materially from the duration of life of the clergy, being 

 somewhat less when the comparison is made between the less dis- 

 tinguised members of the medical profession and clergy whose deaths 

 are recorded in the same obituaries; and somewhat greater when the 

 comparison is limited to the now distinguished membcrsof the two pro- 

 fessions : — 4th. That the duration of life of medical men has somewhat 

 increased during the last three centuries. 



Rutiiven's Propeller. — The Enterprise is 100 feet long and has a 

 10 feet beam; and her tonnage is about 100. Her engines consist 

 of four horizontal cylinders, 12 inches diameter and 2 feet stroke, 

 coupled to a vertical crank shaft. The propeller is composed of a fau 

 wheel, 7 feet diameter, fixed on the lower end of the vertical shaft 

 and revolving in a water-tight chamber ; the water flows into this 

 chamber along a covered passage, through a number of small 

 openings in the bottom of the vessel, and is expelled in two con- 

 tinuous streams, by curved pipes, through the sides. The "nozzles." 

 or extremities of these pipes, are only 10 inches diameter, and they are 

 all that protrudes from the surface of the hull, yet the flow of the 

 water through these nozzles furnishes the whole power required for 

 the advance of the vessel. Their best action is obtained when they are 

 entirely out of the water, and they are therefore sitviated about one 

 foot above the water-line. They are pivotted to the sides of the hull, 

 and are pointed astern when the vessel is to move ahead, or ahead 

 when the vessel is to move astern, or vertically downwards when the 

 vessel is desired to remain at rest. The changes of motion are thus 

 effected with great rapidity, even while the engines continue at full 

 speed, the reversing operation being confined to the rotation of the 

 nozzles. 



Now as to the performance. The motion of the vessel is as smooth 

 as that of a canal boat, as the propulsion is continuous, not intermit- 

 tent, like that of paddles. So remarkable is the smoothness of motion 

 that persons on board the first trip, declared they could not be aware 

 of the motion without looking over the " ship's side. The 

 highest speed that has yet been attained is about 12 miles an 

 hour, and this was achieved on the second public trial of the 

 vessel ; and we feel confident that, after some obvious modi- 

 fications of the machinery are completed, we shall reach a speed 

 of 14 miles per hour. The means of quickly reversing enable us to 

 stop the vessel within 50 feet when sailing at full speed : and, by 

 placing the nozzles reversely, one ahead, and the other astern, the 

 vessel may be turned on the spot, swinging on her beam, without the 

 aid of the rudder, 



