48 
C. Beauvors has given an account 
of a new genus of plants, which he 
has difcovered in Africa, and called by 
him omphalocarpon. The peculiarity of 
this tree is that its flowers and fruit are 
attached to the trank, without the inter- 
vention of branches. He likewife has 
mace. feveral new obfervations on mofies, 
-which confirm him in the opinion that the 
capfule (urza) of thefe plants is herme- 
phrodite, containing at the fame time the 
fecundating pollen and the germs of the 
feeds. - 
C. SaBaTiER has endeavoured to give 
a new explanation of the changes which 
the new-born infant experiences in the cir- 
culation of the blood. The oppreffion of 
the vafcular fyitem, he obferves, which re- 
fults from the removal of the placenta, 
forces the infant to make various efforts, 
which occafion the firft refpiration. The 
thorax in dilating pufhes down the dia- 
phragm and with it the heart, and the more 
eafily as the bulk of the liver has dimi- 
nifhed. The heart, in changing its pofi- 
tion, alters the relative fituation of all the 
veffels attached to it, when, by a compli- 
cation of aétions, the foramen ovale clotes, 
The angie which the canalis arteriofus 
forms with the two large arteries alfo 
changes, and this canal, likewife, from no 
longer receiving blood, in a fhort time is 
obliterated, 
C. MESSIER gives a curious compari- 
fon between the fummers of the years 8 
and 1 (18co and 1793). The moft re. 
markable circumftance belonging to the 
Jai fummer, is the unufual fall of the wa- 
ters of the Seine. In the year 1793, the 
level of the water was pretty uniformly 
for four months and a half, twenty-feven 
millimetres above the zero of the fcale or 
gauge, fixed in the bridge of La Tour- 
nelle. For four days only it fell to the 
zero. Laff fummer, however, on the 2d 
Froétidor (Aug. 20), the water fank 167 
millimetres (fix inches) below the zero of 
the gauge, which was the loweft fall in 
1793- The year 1719 was remarkable 
for the drought, as there only fell nine 
inches, four lines, of rain during the 
whole year at the obfervatory at Paris, 
which is only half the common average. 
‘The finking of the water of the Seine was 
alfo fo uncommon, that to preferve the 
memorial of it a fcale was fixed on the 
Pont de Ja Tournelle ; but an uncertainty 
has arifen, whether the extreme fall of the 
water was marked by the zero of the fcale, 
_or by the firft foot aboveit. Whichever 
opinion be taken, the fall laft fummer was 
lower than at any period on record, being 
: 
Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
[Feb. 1, 
either fix or eighteen inches lower than in 
171g, according to the fide of the quef-- 
tion adopted. 
C. Prony read a memoir containing 
the defcription and analytical. theory of a 
new inffrument fitted to meafure the 
length of a pendulum beating feconds. It 
is known that the prefent method requires 
very delicate attention to the form of the 
ofcillating bodies, that the ofcillations can- 
not be prolonged beyend two hours at the 
utmoft, and hence the accuracy of its re- 
fults muft be’ fubje&ted to the regularity of 
the trme; and that the neceffity of taking’ 
down and fetting up the apparatus in dif- 
ferent places may caufe fome doubts with 
regard to the exactnefs of the obferva- 
tions. C, Prony propofes to remedy 
thefe defeéts by his new inftrument, which 
does not require any particular attention 
to the form of the oicillating body, whilft 
the bulk of the latter is fuficient to allow 
the continuance of the ofcillations during 
two fucceffive tranfits of the fame ftar 
-acrofs the fame vertical line, fo that the ufe 
of the time-pieces is reduced merely to af 
fit in counting the ofcillations of the pen- 
dulum. | 
C. Brisson has publifhed his Elements 
of Phyfico-Chemical Science,,intended as 
a continuation of his Principles of Na- 
tural Philofophy, principally for the ufe of 
the central ichools, and contains a clear and 
methodical furvey of all the fubftances 
concerned in chemiftry, their analyfis, 
{pecific gravity, and other remarkable pro- 
perties 5 with the principal apparatus fdr 
experiments. 
The foreign members of the commiffion 
for weights and meafures continue to report 
the intereft with which their refpeétive go- 
vernments have received the models of the 
metre and kilogramme. Mr. ByGce, 
director of the obfervatory and board of 
Jongitude at Copenhagen, has had the 
models configned to his care. C, 
TratLgs, deputy from Helvetia, and 
the minifter of fciences and arts of this re- 
public, mention the hopes which they en- _ 
tertain of feeing a metrical fyftem adopted 
in Switgerland fimilar to the French. By 
a fortunate concurrence, the common foot 
of Zurich is found to be almoft exaétly. 
equal to three decimetres, to within a 
hundredth of a line of difference, a quan- 
tity fo fmall as always to bedifregarded in 
commerce, and feldom to be eftimated even 
in the moft delicate operations. oe 
C. Moneeg has added one conjeéture. 
to the many already exifting, concerning 
the defign of one of the finelt ftatues 
brought frem Italy, which was dug up in 
3769 
