44a 
Dr. BENZENBERG has lately made 
from thé tower of St. Michael’s church at 
Hambureh, a great variety of experiments 
and obiervations relative to atronomy and 
phyfics, thicty-one of which relate to the 
rotation of the earth, twenty to the refift- 
ance which the air makes to falling water, 
and four hundred and jorty to the refift- 
ance which is made by the air to falling 
balis of lead an inch and a half in diameter. 
Theie experiments were made at different 
heights, iromio to 340 feet Paris mea- 
fure. The greateft care was taken to ob- 
ferve with accuracy the times of falling, 
and the elevation was one hundred feet 
greater than that at Bologna, where Ric- 
cioli made his experiments two hundred 
years. ago, and eighty-five feet greater 
than that of St. Paul's, where experiments 
were mace the beginning of lait century, 
by Sir I. Newton. : 
The Peterfburg academy of arts has ob- 
tained an annual grant from the Emperor 
ef 140,000 rubles, inftead of 60,000, 
which was formerly allowed. 
Mr. DeGrenier has lately publiihed 
at Bofton a general theory of the winds 
and currents, in whichis a refutation of 
the vagaries of St. Pierre, which abfurdly 
fuppofe that the melting of the ice under 
the poie is the caufe of tides and currents ; 
and a confirmation of what that ingenious 
author afferts with regard to the motion 
cf the earth in the ecliptic, which he at- 
tributes to the alternate melting of the ice 
under the poles. 
M. TromsporFF gives the following 
method for obtaining metallic cobalt per- — 
feétly pure. ‘* Mix a pound of beit faffre 
with four ounces of nitrate of potafh, and 
two ounces of piiverized charcoal, and 
throw the mixture in {mail portions into a 
red-hot crucible: repeat the fame cpera- 
tion three times; at the third time leave 
the matter expofed to a white heat ; re- 
move it rapidly, and add four ounces of 
black flux; place the crucible in the fur- 
nace, and let it remain pericétlwred-hot 
for am hour : when cold, feparate the re- 
duced part of the cobalt, which, in confe- 
quence of the treatment to which it has 
been {ubjected, has loft great part of its 
arfenic and iron; it muit then be mixed 
with thrice its weight of nitrate of potath, 
and the mixture deflagrated in imall por- 
tigens ina red-hot crucible. By this laft 
operation the iron is completely oxydated, 
tne ‘arfenic is converted into acid, and 
taken into combination by the potafh. By 
levigation with warm water, all the faline 
parts are carried off, and the oxyd of co- 
Balt is feparated by the filtre, The oxyd 
Varieties, Literary and Philofephical, 
[June 1, 
isto be diffolved in a fuitable nitric acid, — 
and ‘he folution filtered.”’ 
The Univerity of Copenhagen had 
lately propofed the following quefticn:— 
‘* Whether ic would be a vantageous te 
the literature of tne North to fubftitute 
the ufe of the myth logy of the North to 
that of the Greek mythology.” Three 
Memoirs have appeared on this fubjeé&, 
all very intere‘ing, and worthy to be 
taken into confideration. That which 
has been acjudged the heft, demonftrates 
the necefiiry of retaining the Greek my- 
thology, as the mo cultivated and: mof \ 
ingen ous: the two others give the prefe- 
rence to the mythelogy of the North, as 
more proper to pioduce- chef d @uures than 
the other, which has already hsecd fo 
many, and which feems to be exhanfted. 
‘There appeared at Peterfburg, in the 
year 2801, a Collection of Hiftorical No- 
tices on the Monguls, volume IT. in Ger- 
man, by Counfelior PaLLas. It contains 
a {ketch of the different religious opinions 
of thofe hordes, the ftate of the hierarchy 
and of the clergy of Thibet, the defcrip- 
tion of the religious and civil ocders, and 
of the ceremonies in ufe at interments ; 
including likewife a notice on the litera- 
ture of the inhabitants of the valt coun- 
tries that are the objeét of this work. 
There has lately appeared at Kiel 2 
publication in German, under the title of 
<* Obf{-rvations and Experiments for a 
Number of Years on the Defect of Hear- 
ing in the Deaf and Dumb ;”’ particularly 
ujeful to thofe who are empleyed in the 
prectical part of Galvanifm. To this is 
added the defcription of a new kind of . 
cornet, or hearing-horn. The author is 
M. Peincsren, Director of the Inftitute 
of Deaf and Dumb at Kiel, (1802).— 
The author, who for the Jaft 14 years 
has fuperintended that ufeful eftablifh- 
ment with a highly commendable zeal, 
and whofe whole life ({ay the foreign jour- 
nals) is marked by aéts of beneficence and 
traits of humanity, makes an obfervat:on, 
founded on a great number of -experi- 
ments, that we fhould not depend too 
much on the falutary effects of Galvanifm 
as applied to the deaf and dumb ; for the 
defect in the auditory organ often returns 
after having been removed ; and thofe 
who employ the Galvanic agents are often 
too apt to miftake for the re-eftablifhment 
of the organ, what is only the effect of 
that fine and delicate fenfation with which 
the generality of the deaf and dumb are 
endowed. As to the cornet that the au- 
thor propofes, its principal advaniage is, 
that it occafions no buzzing in the ear, 
which — 
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