$58 
M. BusCHENDERF has invented a 
prefs for packing~all kinds of goods with 
expedition. It is cheap, eafily worked, 
occupies little room, and is calculated to 
fave the expence of metal vices and 
fcxews, and to obviate the neceflity of 
wooden ferews, which are apt to {well 
with humidity; the operation being per- 
formed by the a¢tion of a lever, the 
power of which may be ealily aug- 
mented, 
It appears from fome experiments 
made by Citizen VaUQUELIN, that buck- 
wheat yields by combuftion a confider- 
able quantity of potafh, which may 
be employed with advantage in the glafs- 
manufactories. The afhes of other vege- 
tables contain only from 18 to 20 per 
cent of that alkali, or nearly one-fifth ; 
but the of afhes buckwheat contain 33 
per cent, or nearly one-third. 
The Rhus radicans of Linnzus, or the 
‘Toxicodendron of Tournefort, the juice of 
which. is acrid and corrofive, and which 
by fimple corta&t commonly caules erifi- 
pelatous eruptions, has been Mthertoknown 
only by its detiructive qualities, and by 
fome properties which are ufeful in dying. 
Dr. Durresnoy, of Montpellier, has ac- 
cidentally difcovered in this plant certain 
valuable qualities. Having ob{erved that 
a young man, who had been troubled 
for ix months with a tetter on his wrift, 
was Juddealy cured by handling the Rhus 
radicans, he determined to try the effect 
of it in other cafes ; and after feveral ex- 
periments, he has afcertained its elfheacy 
in deftroying ring-werms, and in healing 
paralyfis, 
M.Fasront, a {cientific Italian, hav- 
ing obferved that the fucculent leaves of 
the alsé fuccotorina anguftifolia acquired 
an agreeable violet colour wien laid to dry 
upon plants, he wifhed to try by experi- 
ment, whether he could not feparate the” 
the matter or ftamina of this beautiful 
colour from the juice of the living leaves 
of this plant. For this purpofe, after 
having iqueezed the leaves of the plant, 
and extracted the juice, he expofed it in 
an open veflel to the contaét of the air; 
he fosn found that it firft turned red, and — 
that, by degres, it pafled to a moft beau- 
tiful purple violet. The fame juice, mixed 
either with acids or alkalies, turned alfo 
red, and at laft became difturbed, and 
yielded. a fort of violet feculence or fedi- 
ment. The juice of, aloes may therefore 
be coniidered. as capable of furnifhing a 
colour, which is fo much the more valu- 
able, as,on being diffolved in water, itmay 
ferve, either in heat or cvid, to the dyeing 
> 
Literary and Philgophical Intelligence. 
[ Nov. Tt; 
of filk, from the flightef to the deepef 
tint. Silk without dreffing becomes im- 
pregnated with it and fixes it. Silk done 
over with brimftone attracts it equally, 
although this latter feems but little dif 
pofed to take any colour whatever. The 
alog, it is true, is not a plant indiges 
nous to our climates, but it partakes of 
this inconvenience in common with al-* 
moft all the fubftances that ferve for dye- 
ing, and even with a great number of 
thofe that ferve us for food. We may 
procure the juice of aloes, by importing it 
dire&t from Sucotra, not fuch as we have 
it by commercial conveyance, reduced to — 
a thick. confiftence by fire, but dried by 
the action of the air, or (till better pre- 
pared by an acid. Befides, as this pliant 
grows without difficulty in our botanical 
gardens, there is reafon to hope, at leaft, 
in the fouthern climates of Italy, that it 
may be jufficiently multiplied by culture, 
to admit of extracting the colour from it, 
The value of this new colour will appear 
more evident, by confidering that it is 
unalterable in acidsand in alkalies, and 
that, from this circumftance, it poffeffes 
the rare quality of not being capable of 
taking {pots. Moreover, when it is con- 
fidered that the oxygene which difcolours 
our {inen and our filks fo as to render 
them white, is, fo to fpeak, the principle : 
of the colour of the aloes, we mutt infer 
from this, that the air cannot alter a qua- 
lity given by itfelf, and hence we may 
conclude with Fabroni; that the colom 
produced by the juice of aloes, is one of 
the moit ftable known innature. 
Citizen Hauy, a learned mineralogift 
of Paris, in a Memoir upon Lopazes,lately 
publifhed by him, obferves that he had 
never been able to determine that there 
exifted in topazes a correlation betwen 
the pofition of the ele&tric poles and the 
refults of the laws of ftructure, relative 
to the parts in which thofe poles refided. 
He defcribes the apparatus which he has 
made ufe of, to verify his conjeétures, and 
to determine the electricity of the topaz. 
It refults from his excellent experiments 
that the refinous or regative pole of the 
cryftal is at the place of the fuperior 
fummit, that which exhibits ten faces, and 
that the vitreous, or negative ‘pole refides 
in the fummit with fix faces. 
A beautiful foffile fifh was lately found 
in_ one of the quarries of Nanterre, near 
Paris, which is the fecond that has been 
difcovered in a mafs of folid ftone ; it 
belongs to the genus Coryphene of La- 
cepede, and has a clofe affinity to the 
Coryphenus Chryfurus, ’ 
Ia 
