Foreign Literature and Science. 1 59 



INTELLIGENCE AND MISCELLANIES. 



I. Foreign Literature and Science, extracted and translated 

 by Prof. J. Griscom. 



1. Prussia. Public Instruction. — There are in all the 

 Prussian Monarchy, 20,085 elemenv.ary Schools for the peo- 

 ple, of which 2,462 are in the towns, and 17,623 in the 

 country. 21,885 masters are attached to these schools, of 

 this number, 15,795 are Protestant and 6,090 Catholics. 

 The sum employed annually by the government in the main- 

 tenance of these Schools amounts to 2,352,752, rix dollars, 

 (about 1,880,000 dollars.) The mean annual assessment for 

 the support of these masters, is $150 in the cities and $70 

 in the country. — Reveu Enc. 



2. Iron, varieties of. — The resulfstated in a memoir on the 

 different states of iron, by M. Mutter, of the administration of 

 mines of Prussia is as follows : 



1. Cast Iron. — 1. Iron forms two distinct compounds 

 with carbon : first, a little carbon and much iron, (the proto- 

 carburet,) and a second much carbon and a little iron, the 

 graphite, (per carburet.) 



2. Cast iron is only a compound of pure iron and carbon ; 

 the gray variety contains besides some graphite. 



3. In high furnaces the ore of iron begins by being deoxidiz- 

 ed ; the regulus combines immediately with carbon, and contin- 

 ues to become charged with it as long as circumstances per- 

 mit. This operation of reduction is accompanied with the 

 formation of dross, which materially modifies the quantity 

 of carbon which the cast iron contains, according to the ra- 

 pidity or slowness of its formation; its perfect or imperfect 

 vitrification, its liquidity or thickness of consistence, and 

 lastly the nature of its constituent parts. 



4. In the cast iron, which has but little carbon, the affin- 

 ity of the iron for this substance is too strong to allow it to 

 separate, and form graphite. This variety remains white 

 even when it cools slowly. 



In the varieties which are rich in carbon, this substance. 



