1832.] Scientific Intelligence. 311 



Should the Committee succeed in finding some individual ready to undertake 

 the task, they propose that an application should he made to the Royal Society 

 of Edinburgh, for permission to make use of the standard needle belonging to 

 them, and constructed under the direction of Professor Hansteen of Christiana. 



It appears to the Committee of considerable importance that a certain number 

 of observations should be made throughout Britain with the dipping needle, in. 

 order to reduce the horizontal to the true magnetic intensity. 



Note. — The time of three hundred vibrations should he observed, and the 

 methods of observation and reduction should be the same as have been employed 

 and described by Humboldt, Hansteen, and others. 



Electro-Magnetism. — The Committee recommend as an important subject for 

 further prosecution, the examination of the electro-magnetic condition of 

 metalliferous veins. The Committee would refer for the details of what has 

 been already done upon this subject, to the paper of Mr. Fox in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1830, and would propose that the experiments should be ex- 

 tended to veins which traverse, as in some of our mines, horizontal and dis- 

 similar strata. 



Optics. — That Dr. Brewster be requested to prepare for the next meeting a re- 

 port on the progress of optical science. 



Acoustics. — That the Rev. Robert Willis be requested to prepare for the next 

 meeting a report on the state of our knowledge concerning the phanomena of 

 sound, and the additions which have been recently made to it. 



Heat. — That Professor Powell be requested to prepare for the next meeting a 

 similar report respecting heat. 



Electricity. — That Professor Cumming be requested to prepare for the next 

 meeting a similar report on thermo-electricity, and the allied subjects, in which 

 recent discoveries have been made. 



Chemical Committee. 



It appears to the Committee of supreme importance, that chemists should be 

 enabled, by the most accurate experiments, to agree in the relative weights of 

 the several elements, hydrogen, oxygen, and azote, or, which amounts to the 

 same thing, that the specific gravity of the three gases should be ascertained in 

 such a way as would insure the reasonable assent of all competent and unpre- 

 judiced judges. 



They think it highly desirable, that the doubts which remain respecting the 

 proportions of azote, oxygen, &c. in the atmosphere should be removed ; that 

 the proportions of azote and oxygen in nitrous gas and nitrous oxide should be 

 strictly determined ; and that the specific gravities of the compound gases in 

 general should he more accurately investigated. 



They recommend that the members of this Committee, and British chemists in 

 general, be invited to make experiments on these subjects, and communicate 

 their results to the next meeting at Oxford. 



That Mr. Johnston be requested to present to the next meeting a view of the 

 recent progress of chemical science, especially in foreign countries. 



That Dr. Daubeny be requested to undertake an investigation into the sources 

 from which organic bodies derive their fixed principles. 



That Mr. Johnston be requested to undertake the inquiries which have been 

 i suggested to the Committee, into the comparative analysis of iron in the different 

 stages of its manufacture. 



