STUDY OF CHEMISTRY AVITH MECHANICS. 
59 
common life. The successful manufactory 
of glass and v’arious kinds of pottery depends 
upon a knowledge of the nature of the sub- 
stances employed, of their fusibility as af- 
fected by difference of proportion, or by 
the admixture of foreign substances, and 
of the means of regulating and measuring 
high degrees of heat. The Chemist Berghan 
taught the most successful manufactory of 
brick and tiles. The art of malting is most 
successfully taught by the chemist. Dyeing 
and printing, as we hare already shewn, are 
a tissue of chemical operation, and in short 
we should tire our readers by giving further 
illustration, to shew the utility of this de- 
partment of our labours to medical men who 
are generally chemists. If national prosperi- 
ty in Britain has arisen in an eminent degree 
from the superiority in the production of 
her arts, ought they, we enquire, to be neg- 
lected in British India ? If not, we may 
boldly put the question — are we not, as 
having the welfare of India at heart, 
bound to promote it by a due discharge of 
our duty by diffusing discoveries on mecha- 
nical arts among medical men as the means 
of communicating them to the natives? We 
do not pretend to say that chemistry has 
not been known to the people of India : 
but we assert that its application to the com- 
forts of the people has hitherto been con- 
fined to processes attained by accident, and 
transmitted from one generation to another 
without any knowledge of their principles. 
The division of the people into castes and 
confinement of trades to certain families, 
have tended to raise the mechanical arts to 
their present state of perfection, but then 
they are stationary, — there is no desire for 
improvement. Moreover, at present the me- 
chanical arts are confined to the very infe- 
rior orders of the people, who being an 
uneducated class, have no other notions than 
those which are erroneous and absurd in 
the highest degree. Their means of con- 
veyance by land and water, and their vari- 
ous kinds of implements and machinery suf- 
ficiently prove, all that we have advanced, 
and shews the necessity which exists that 
something should be done by the aid of 
medical men, who are so fitted by their 
knowledge of chemistry to carry the great 
work of improvement into execution. It will 
be a pleasing reflection hereafter to us that 
if by adding this new department to our 
labours we shall be promoting the pecu- 
niary interests of the deserving and talented 
members of our profession, and by diffusing 
important discoveries in the mechanical arts, 
be the means of adding to the affluence, the 
comforts, and the happiness of the na- 
tives of India. 
We open this department with the pre- 
sent month, by announcing a very impor- 
tant discovery of what is called a Pneuma- 
tic Railway. The importance to this coun- 
try of railway transit will soon be duly 
estimated, as the native commercial commu- 
nity advance in the knowledge of science 
and the arts. We shall make no apology for 
bringing the subject before our readers. 
We have extracted the article from the Me- 
chanic s Magazine for May, 183.5. The edi- 
tor of that periodical is opposed to the in- 
vention, and a discussion is being carried on 
between the projector and him : but in the 
present state of the discussion, it would be 
unprofitable to give the opinions of either 
to our readers, 
THE PNEUMATIC RAILW-AY. 
A model, of what is called a “ Pneumatic 
Railway,” for which Mr. Henry Pinkus has 
taken out a patent, is now exhibiting in Wig- 
more-street ; and a prospectus is in circula- 
tion of a '' National Pneumatic Railway Asso- 
ciation,” to promote the adoption, on all the 
railroads in England,” of the system of trans- 
port of which this model is an exemplification. 
Copies are also handed about of Opinions” 
given by Dr. Lardner and Professor Faraday 
in favour of the system ; and on the strength 
of these opinions very considerable sums are 
stated to have been subscribed to the project- 
ed Association.” We shall first lay before 
our readers as much of the prospectus as re- 
lates to the scientific merits of the project, and 
then the Opinions” of Messrs. Faraday and 
Lardner entire ; after which we shall add 
something in the way of an opinion of our own. 
Extracts from Prospectus of the National 
Pneumatic Raihvay Association. 
The improvement consists in the means 
by which one of the most effective powers in 
nature is made available to railway transit, 
and it is applied through the agency of fxed 
steam engines, arranged at stations several 
miles apart along the line of road ; the medium 
of communication between the stations consti- 
