1801.] 
THREE-WHEELED CARRIAGES. 
“€ Along the Belgic frontier,” fays Pro- 
feflér Bygge, ‘‘three-wheeled carts are 
uled by the farmers inftead of four-wheeled 
ones. They are made of all fizes, for one, 
two ahd four horfes, who will draw in 
them as large a load as two, four or fix 
horfes in a four-wheeled cart. ‘They are 
more eafily turned, incur lefs friction, and 
ought to be generally preferred.” 
PLASTER-CASTS. 
~ ToLyfiftratus,’’ fays Pliny, «the world 
is indebted for the invention of plafter- 
calts. Hominis autem gypfo e facie ipfa 
primus simnium expreffit, ceraque in eam 
Sormam gypfi infufa emendare infiitutt 
Lyfiftratus Sicyonius, frater Lyfippt. 
(XXXV_ 12). his Lyfiftratus flourithed 
in the time of Alexander the Great: all 
the bufts of an earlier date are confequently 
not copied from modellings ; but mu be 
likeneffes comparatively imperfect. Let 
us not attempt to ftudy phyfiognomy in 
the . pretended heads’ of Homer and of 
Plato. 
IMPROVEMENT vf the ZEQLIAN HARP. 
The anemo-chord was invented by John 
James Schnell, who was born in 1740, at 
Wahingen, in the Duchy of Wurtemberg. 
He was‘bound apprentice to a cabinet- 
maker, and in 1760 let himfelf as journey- 
man to an organ-maker, at Rothenburg, 
named Geifinger. Thence he removed 
into Holland, and was a diftinguifhed 
workman under Van Dilken. Io 1777 he 
went to Paris and fet up for himfelf. He 
obtained fplendid patronage, and became 
_mufical inftrument-maker to the Countefs 
Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
425 
of Artois. The founding of aharp hung 
by accident in a breezy paflage on his 
premifes faggelted the idea of that inftru- 
‘ment, which, in 1789, be firft expofed to 
fale by the name anezzo.chorde. 
WAX-WORK. 
Leopold, while Grand-duke of Tufcany, 
caused to be made, under the direction of 
Fontana, and exhibited in. the Palace 
Torreggiano, at Florence, a ferics of ana- 
tomical {culptures in coloured wax, which 
have long amufed the curious traveller and 
inftruéted the medical ftudent. In ‘1775 
eight rooms, in 1794. twenty rooms were 
filled with thefe imitations, which repre- 
fent in every poffible detail, and in each 
fucceffive ftage of denudation, the organs 
of fenfe and reproduétion, the mufcular, 
the vafcular, the nervous, and the boney 
fyftem. They imitate equally well the 
form, and. more exaétly the colouring of 
nature than injected preparations ;. and 
they have been employed to perpetuate 
many tranGent phenomena of difeafe, of 
which no other art could have made fo 
lively a record. 
Cupids of wax are mentioned by Ana- 
creon. Saints of wax were common in 
the middle ages.’ For portraiture in wax 
Andrea del Verrocchio was famous, in the 
fifteenth century. But the fiift applica- 
of ceroplaftic to anatomical {cience, is due 
to Cajetano Julio Zumbo of Syracufe, 
born in 1656. Ercole Lelli, of Bologna, 
affifted by Manzollini and-his wife, made 
the firft public collection of wax-model- 
lings fyfematically adapted to the inftruc- 
tion of fargeons and artiits, 
(EB eH 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED’ SOCIETIES. 
eee 
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF 
FRANCE, 
CONTINUATION of the THIRD QUAR- 
TERLY SIFTING Of the CLASS of MA- 
THEMATICAL a@#d PHYSICAL SCI- 
ENCES, YEAR 9. . 
ZOOLOGY.—Onx the MONOCLE FLEA. 
NDER the vulgar name of water- 
flea, (puce d°’eau) is commonly 
known a fimall cruftaceous animal, very 
abundant in {till waters, and which has 
fometimes given rife to reports of its rain- 
ing blood, becaufe in the {pring the eggs 
with which it is loaded give it a red co- 
Jour, and the waters where they are 
' found in numbers, have really then the 
appearance of being dycd with blood. 
The moft fkilful naturaliftts, Swammer- 
damm, De Geer, Scheffer, and Otto-Fre- 
derick Muller, have fucceffively fiudied it ;- 
but nature is inexhauftible, even in its 
fmatleft productions; and Citizen Juringa, 
affociate-member of the Inftitute, at Ge- 
neva, has further difcovered, with refpeck 
to this fingle infect, a multitude of cu- 
rious faéts which had efeaped thofe learned 
men. Although this infec is but two or 
three millimeters in length, in its largeft 
ftate, Citizen Jurine, on a minute infpec- 
tion, bas obferved in it two compound 
eyes, fo near together, that many have’ 
taken them for a fingle one; two fhort 
mandibles without indentations; a parti- 
cular organ, which he calls the valves or 
giz | fuckex, 
