Dr Livingstone on an Improved Hygrometer, 117 
Itowever, as unnecessarily extensive, I have made another with 
S.l grains of acid and 2.9 of water, and exposed this mixture in 
a common flat watch-glass. The scale was only 100, but by 
means of a Vernier it may be divided into 1000. 
This instrument, which is fully as sensible as Kater’s Hygro- 
meter, pointed to 950 (or the mixture weighed 9 J grains) at 
Macao, on the 7th February 1817, during the prevalence of a 
remarkably thick fog. It continued so till bed-time; but next 
morning, at seven o'clock, the wind having changed in the 
course of the night from S. W, to N. E. it had lost 4^ grains, or 
had fallen to 100. This is the most remarkable change I have 
ever witnessed even in China. 
I could wish to have scales made of glass as flat as possible, 
with a small rim perforated with three holes, to J?e suspended 
to the beam by means of platina wires, and to have a very light 
glass-cover suspended by the same v/ires, within a very small 
distance of the rim. To the other end of the beam a moveable 
weight may be appended to mark the larger divisions ; the 
beam may be lengthened to describe any arch of a circle, and 
consequently the divisions may be as minute as can be wished. 
Dust will thus be excluded, and should the objection of spon- 
taneous decomposition be considered to have any vv^eight, or in 
case of exposure to alkaline fumes, the mixture may be renewed 
with scarcely any trouble. 
Art. XXII. — On the Temporary Residences of the Greenlanders 
during the Winter Season'^ and on the Popidatmi of North 
and ^outh Greenland, By Sir Charles Giesecke'^, Pro- 
fessor of Mineralogy to the Dublin Society, M. W. S. &c. 
Communicated by the Author. 
-i- HE Greenlanders being a migrating people, transfer very 
often their abodes for the winter season from one place to ano- 
ther. Their houses are generally built near the shores on 
small islands, or at the mouths of the firths. They cannot sub- 
sist in the interior of them, as the sea is frozen there very 
early in the autumn. The following places were inliabited dur® 
big the years from 1810 to 1813. 
