1832.] Miscellaneous Intelligence. 421 



it earth to the height of one or two cubits, and leave it during the whole night, 

 and when it is morning, before the rising of the sun, scrape the earth from it, and 

 lift up the vessel, and if the water is seen adhering to the vessel within, in many 

 drops, near to each other, and the wool filled (with it), there is water in 

 this place, and it is near ; and if the drops be not collected (together), and 

 not near each other, and the quantity of water in the wool be moderate, then 

 the water is neither very far off nor very near ; and if the drops be adherent and 

 separated from each other, and there be little water in the wool, then the water is 

 distant; and if there be seen no drops in the vessel, neither large nor small, and there 

 be no water in the wool, then there is no water in the place, and it is useless to 

 digit. I find also in some copies of agricultural works upon this subject that 

 he who wishes to know this matter is to examine the ants' nests, and if he find the 

 ants thick, black, and slow in their motions, let him consider, and as slow as are 

 their motions, so near is water to them, and if the ants are quick in their motions 

 it is not near; and the water is 40 cubits from them ; and the water in the first case 

 is sweet and good, and in the second is heavy and salt : and this paragraph is for 

 him who desires to find water, and we have explained this in detail in our book 

 the /ikhbar-uzzamdn, and have only mentioned here what necessity requires as a 

 hint on the subject, without any detail or explanation." ST 



6. Mirage in India. 



It is not generally known that the mirage, apparently fi rst brought to the notice 

 of modern Europeans by the French army in Egypt, is visible in the central parts 

 of Hindiistau. In Rajputana it is necessarily of constant occurrence ; but in the 

 less arid plains to the eastward it is also to be seen. At Ghazipur, between the 

 European bazar and the stables of the Company's stud, there is a level, extending 

 about a mile; from the east end of which may very often be seen, about half a de- 

 gree under the western horizon, the appearance of a sheet of water about 1° in 

 width and perhaps 109 in length from right to left, in which the sky, houses, trees, 

 and animals are reflected as in a bright mirror. D. B. 



7. Hard Mind, or Green Basalt , used for coloring Stucco. 



The rock in which the caves of Ellora are excavated is stated by Captain 

 Twem low, Bombay Artillery, to be a basaltic trap, which from its green tinge, 

 and its different stages from hardness to disintegration, is supposed by the natives 

 to be full of vegetable matter in a greater or less advance to petrifaction. The 

 crumbling rock affords a natural green color, which is ground up and employed by 

 the natives in painting on wet chunam : it is called hard mind, or green enamel, 

 probably because when exposed to heat it fuses into a dark bottle-green glass. 



Chaptal, the chemist, introduced in France a method of making glass bottles 

 with pulverulent basalt, either alone or mixed with sand and ashes. The above 

 substance might doubtless be employed for the purpose, were there sufficient in- 

 ducement to set up an establishment of the kind. 



8. On the Converging Beams of Light which are occasionally seen opposite to the Sun. 

 " This phenomenon is always seen opposite to the sun and generally at the same 

 time with the phenomenon of diverging beams, as if another sun, diametrically 

 opposite to the real one, were below the horizon, and throwing out his divergent 

 beams." In a phenomenon of this kind which I saw in 1824, the eastern portion 

 of the horizon where it appeared was occupied with a black cloud, which seems 

 to be necessary as a ground for rendering visible such feeble radiations. 



