Notices regarding the Vineyards of Egypt. 825 
place ? it is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pome- 
granates.” Egypt was so far from being destitute of the vine, 
that a very ancient author goes so far as to say, that the vine 
was discovered near Plinthine ; and, even according to Diodo- 
rus Siculus, it was Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, that discover- 
ed the vine at Nysa, and instructed men in the art of extracting 
wine from it. If Nysa be placed in Arabia, it is, without doubt, 
because there is meant the country which separates the Nile 
from the Arabian Gulf, a vast tract, often called Arabia by 
authors, and full of valleys adapted for the cultivation of the 
vine. 
With regard to the wine of Merbe , which appears attested by 
grave authorities, its existence is, without doubt, more authen- 
tic than that of the wonderful wine of Ethiopia, which astonish- 
ed Semiramis, and not without reason, for it filled as is said, a 
lake of 160 feet in circumference ; and whoever drank of it was 
immediately brought to the recollection of his faults, even those 
which had long been forgotten. Whatever, further, may be the 
quality of the wines of Egypt, or of those of Ethiopia, we are 
strongly disposed to conclude, with M. Make Brun, that those 
of France are in no way inferior to them. 
Art. XV . — Account of a newly invented and rotatory Gas- 
Burner. By Mr James Nimmo, Edinburgh. 
As you have occupied many of the pages of your useful 
J ournal lately with discussions respecting the illuminating powers 
of coal and oil gas, and the best contrivances which have been 
made for burners of it, allow me to lay before your readers a 
description of one which I invented some months ago, and which 
I think is capable of many useful applications. 
This burner is no less remarkable for the unexpected effect 
which it exhibits, than for the real simplicity of its construction. 
Its peculiarity is, that it has an incessant rotatory motion, which, 
when combined with a tasteful variation of the burning jets, pro- 
duces an agreeable and beautiful effect. The following is a de- 
scription of it : The revolving burner consists of an outside case 
or tube A (PL IX. Fig. 6.), which is filled with water three parts 
