160 Miscellanies. 



Memoir of John Dalton, and history of the Atomic Theory up 

 to his time ; by Robt. Angus Smith, Ph. D.F.C.S. (Published 

 also as vol. xiii, New series, of the Memoirs of the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society of Manchester.) 298 pp. 8vo. London, 

 1856, H. Bailliere. — In the life of a philosopher or the history of 

 a principle i*! philosophy, when either is faithfully executed, there 

 is profound instruction. They not only teach us methods of 

 research, but illustrate its true spirit and aim, and the secret of 

 its strength. The young student will search the world over, 

 unsuccessfully perhaps, for a subject for investigation. The 

 philosopher finds a subject in the most familiar phenomena about 

 him, and by steady scrutinizing labor, draws forth facts and 

 principles of fundamental value. The history of Dalton and his 

 atomic theory has for this reason as well as others a special value 

 to the student in science. The work of Dr. Smith has a peculiar 

 merit, from its bringing out Dalton's theory of atoms in its true 

 relations to the speculations of former centuries. He treats briefly 

 ■of the views on atoms among the ancient Greeks, and thence 

 traces the subject through the period of Alchemy and the earliest 

 beginning of Chemistry to the development of Dalton himself 

 when the mathematical basis of this science and its simple system 

 of numbers were first made clear. A fine portrait of Dalton forms 

 a frontispiece to the volume. — " Silliman's Journal.''^ 



JSJlectric Illumination. — A few weeks since, some experiments 

 on electric illumination were made at Paris, surpassing all that 

 had before been done. The success was due to an electric regu- 

 lator invented by MM. Lacassagne and Thiers, called by them an 

 dectro-metric repeator. It is complicated in structure and cannot 

 well be described here. The inventors placed four of their electric 

 lamps on the platform of the Arc de Triomphe de I'Etoile, and 

 projected the light one day on the Champs Elysees, towards the 

 Place de la Concorde, and a second on the avenues of Neuilly or 

 de I'Imperatrice, the change having been made because of the 

 numerous gas lights of the Champs Elysees. These gas lights 

 were made to look dull and smoky, yet diminished the effect of 

 the electric light ; but in the avenues of I'Imperatrice the light 

 presented intense brilliancy. 



Each lamp was sustained by means of sixty of Bunsen's pairs, 

 and furnished with a spherical reflector of metal, or of glass silvered 

 by a battery in the manner described beyond. 



