Foreign Literature and Science. 391 



number of 1,444,000 individuals who have partaken of this 

 remedy. 



Letter of Pelletier and Caventou to the members of the 

 Royal Academy of Sciences. — Idem. Mars, 1827. 



31. Rural Economy. — M* Lullin, of Geneva, in a 

 pamphlet dictated by philanthropy and intelligence, propo- 

 ses to agriculturists to substitute cows for oxen, or at least 

 to unite the former in the labor of the farm. The substitu- 

 tion, he maintains, would increase the quantity of milk as 

 well as of calves. Cows can work with advantage until six 

 weeks or two months prior to calving, and resume their la- 

 bor a fornight or three weeks after. The diminution of 

 milk in working cows, he supposes, may be one fourth ; here 

 eight working cows would perform the labor of six oxen, and 

 afford at the same time as much milk as six cows without 

 work. A cow will do as much work, it is alledged, as one ox 

 of equal size. 



The superiority, in point of cheapness and profit, of horn- 

 ed cattle over horses, in the work of a farm is considered as 

 very great. Oats, harness, and shoeing are all considerable 

 items. The price of a horse is equal to two oxen or three 

 cows. Horned cattle are subject only to forty seven kinds 

 of diseases, while horses are liable to 261 ; and finally 'a 

 horse aged, blind, or past service, is entirely lost, while an ex 

 or cow fattens in old age and sells to advantage. In case too, 

 at any time, of a broken leg, the animal may serve for food. 

 The amount of manure it is said would be doubled by the 

 substitution of cattle for horses. — Idem. 



32. On a Gelatinous Quartz ; by M. Guillemin. — This 

 substance, white, of a resinous lustre passing to dull, translu- 

 cent on the edges, with a conchoidal fracture, scarcely scratch- 

 ing glass, and scratched by steel, is particularly remarkable for 

 its property of absorbing a large quantity of water : it com- 

 monly contains 1 1 per cent, which is not combined, since it 

 can be expelled entirely by prolonged desiccation : immersed 

 in distilled water, it absorbs it again, (disengaging air bub- 

 bles,) to the amount even of 25 per cent. Infusible with the 

 blowpipe, this mineral dissolves almost instantly in boiling 

 caustic potash. Its chemical analysis gives 97.7 silex and 

 2.3 alumine. Differing from quartz and silex in many res- 

 pects, and especially in density, which is less, in the propor- 



