294 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
dogs. Still we think it would even pay well to keep sheep, herd them at 
night, and have a shepherd with his dog to guard them by day, and thus 
revive old Arcadian times among those delightful mountains. 
n some Modified Results attending the Decomposition of Bitumi- 
nous Coals by Heat; by Dr. A. A, Hayes—When bituminous coal 
is exposed in proper vessels to a gradually increasing temperature, at 
a certain point decomposition commences and continues, while heavy 
hydrocarbon vapors, mixed with the vapors of water and salts of ammo- 
nia, escape, and may be condensed. ee 
The proportion of permanent gases formed is small in comparison with 
the weight of the liquids produced, when the decomposition of the coal 
is carefully regulated. . 
In the ordinary rapid breaking up of the composition of coal by heat 
suddenly applied in the manufacture of illuminating gas, the proportion 
of permanent gases is increased, but the heavy fluid hydrocarbons are 
also formed. This mode of decomposition is evidently a mixed one, pr 
taking of the characters of a regulated distillation, while at the same 
moment a more complete destruction of the coal is proceeding in some 
A further decomposition of the fluid products, condensed from - 
or both of these modes of operating, takes place when we again subject 
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we should expect to find near by those products of the chemica inc 
effected in the coal. Such is the delicacy of the balance est ltion of 
would remain to attest their previous presence. He 
Considerations of this kind have led me to experiment on 
the same as those usually seen; and the results of exten 
strate that the bituminous coals may be broken up into porn 
apors of water, and ammoniacal salts, while carbon remains 
product. n ; Pi in 4 
If we substitute, for the ordinary forms of appara’ which 
posing coal by heat suddenly applied, any modification of em : 
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‘pipe, the heavy hydrocarbons do not form part of the 
