238 
PROCESS OF PREPARING SUGAR FROM THE BEET, 
FLOWERING OF A WEST INDIAN 
PLANT IN THE OPEN AIR. 
At a Meeting of the Ashmolean Society of 
Oxford, on the 6th of November last. Dr, 
Daubeny exhibited a specimen of the Brome- 
liapinguis, a native of the West Indies, which 
flowered last autumn in the open air in the 
garden of Mr. Shirley, of Eatington Park, near 
Shipston-upon-Stour. This plant has rarely 
blossomed in Europe even under glass, al- 
though a drawing of it in flower is given in 
the Hortus Elthamemis ; and the individual 
plant alluded to had been tried first in the 
pinery, and afterwards in the greenhouse, but 
had never put forth flowers,, till it was taken 
out of doors, when it flowered, though the pe- 
tals never properly expanded. 
PHOSPHORIC LIGHT EMITTED BY 
FLOWERS. 
At the same meeting, a communication was 
also read by him respecting an electrical 
phenomenon, which occurred in the garden of 
the Duke of Buckingham, at Stowe. On the 
evening of Friday, thedthof September, 1835, 
during a storm of thunder and lightning, ac- 
companied by heavy rain, the leaves of the 
flower called (Enothera macrocarpa, a bed of 
which is in the garden, immediately opposite 
the windows of the manuscript library at 
Stowe, were observed to be brilliantly illu- 
minated by phosphoric light. During the 
intervals of the flashes of lightning, the night 
was exceedingly dark, and nothing else could 
be distinguished in the gloom except the 
bright light upon the leaves of these flowers. 
The luminous appearance continued uninter- 
ruptedly for a considerable length of time : it 
did not appear to resemble any electric effect ; 
and the opinion which seemed most probable 
was, that the plant, like many known instan- 
ces, has a power of absorbing light, and giving 
it out under peculiar circumstances. 
BEET-ROOT SUGAR. 
Theexertionsmaking in France and through- 
out Germany to simplify the process of pre- 
paring sugar from the Beet are immense and 
unceasing. At the recent meeting of the 
German naturalists, at Bonn, the section of 
Agriculture and Rural Economy was alrnost 
entirely occupied with papers and discussions 
on the subject. At Valenciennes, a manu- 
facturer has succeeded in discovering a me- 
thod of crystallizing the whole of the saccha- 
rine matter of the Beet without producing 
molasses in the process. Three sugar-houses 
there have adopted the new plan. 
SOUTH COOLER THAN THE NORTH. 
The attention of meteorologists is requested 
to the fact, that in the two last months of 
1835, the depression of the thermometer was 
greater, and commenced sooner in the south, 
than in the north, of France. And also, 
that in the Puyde-Dome, a department a lit- 
tle south of the centre of that country, it was 
not the north winds, but violent ones from 
the west and south, which produced the great- 
set cold. 
ELEPHANTS,HAIL,&c., INABYSSINIA. 
In Abyssinia, according to Herr Ruppell, 
elephants and monkeys do not fear -to cross 
plains, some of which have an elevation of 
8300 feet, and on which the temperature must 
be exceedingly low. In the same country it 
hails frequently, but never during storms. 
This fact renders the explanation of the for- 
mation of hail still more difficult, it having 
been supposed, up to the present time, that 
electricity played an important part in the 
process. 
APPLICATION OF OPTICS TO 
CHEMISTRY. 
M. Biot is occasionally developing to the 
Academy of Sciences his mathematical 
and experimental method of detecting mix- 
tures and combinations, both definite and 
indefinite, which act upon polarized light, 
followed by its application to compounds of 
tartaric acid with water, alcohol, and pyrolig- 
neous acid. 
VOLUNTARY INSTRUCTION OF THE 
PEOPLE. 
One of the most pleasing features of the 
present state of things, is the interest which 
the higher and well-educated classes in many 
places are taking in the social improvement of 
those less favoured by fortune or circumstan- 
ces. In Edinburgh, lectures are delivered 
nightly by gentlemen to thousands of people, 
on subjects of Physical and Moral Science. 
In one place, which contains an audience of 
two thousand persons, lectures, the admission 
to which is only a single penny, are delivered 
to the working classes, on Moral and Econo- 
mical Science, or, in other words, on topics 
calculated to improve their mental faculties 
and condition in life. An analysis of these 
lectures is given in the Edinburgh Chronicle 
newspaper, weekly. 
PRACTICAL IMPROVMENT IN LIGHT- 
HOUSE ILLUMINATION. 
On the evening of the 1st of October last, 
a new light on the dioptric* principle of Fres- 
nel, was exhibited on the Island of Inchkeith, 
in the Firth of Forth, in the place of the 
reflecting light which had been used there, 
and which was discontinued on the 30th of 
September. The new light is distinguished, 
like the old one, from others in the neighbour- 
hood, by flashes, occurring once in a minute, 
but it is very far superior in bi'illiancy and 
magnitude. Its power, compared to its pre- 
decessor, is as 2§ to 1. The cost of its main- 
tenance is however greater, being as 17 to 7. 
The light-house on the Isle of May, in the 
same neighbourhood, is in the course of an 
improvement of the same kind. 
♦ In this principle, the light is transmitted 
through media as lenses, and not reflected from 
surfaces, as the British lights usually are. 
