66 
A very curious experiment has lately . 
repeated befcre the National 
Inftitute. If the air be very rapidly 
_comprefled in the ball of an air-gua, a 
Gderabié quent tae of heat ts difen- 
‘from the fift Rroke of the pilton, 
b s fo great that itis capable of fet- 
g Hayy a piece of fungus match placed 
i the pump. If the body of the 
ump be terminated by a moveavle end; 
formed of a piece of fteel firmly icrewed 
in, and furnifed in its centre with a glals 
Jens, which ‘admits of the infide being 
feen, at the firfi ftroke of the pifton, a ray 
of vivid brilliant light will be perceived, 
which is fuddenly difenoaged. 
The finit of the carobe tree (caroubier), 
which has hitherto been cultivated along 
the coaft of the Mediterranean mereiy to 
feed cattle, is found to yield, after fer- 
mentation, excellent brandy, in the pro- 
porticn of a pint to. five pounds of dried 
fruit. 
M. Strauss has, after many experi- 
ments, fucceeded in app ying platina to 
the coating of copper, which wil] un- 
doubtedly be fupericr to that of tin; not 
only in its refiflance to scids and faline 
matters, but in its durability, from the 
greater hardnefs of piatina, and the pro- 
cefs is not more diificuit to be effeéted 
{han the common operation of tinning. 
M. HermesraDT, of Berlin, has dif- 
covered that the zsrmeniilla erefa, a plant 
that grows almoft every where, and the 
polygonum bifforta, fornith excellent ma- 
terials for tanning Jeather. A pound and 
a half of tormentilla, or double that 
quantity ef biftorta, will tan as much 
dry hide as feven pounds of oak bark. 
M. TROUVILLE has made a new hy- 
draulic machine, which throws up water 
toa great height, without any otlier me 
chani iim, and folely by the rarefaction at 
the air in air-tight ftone chambers, placed 
one above acother. For this invention he 
been 
has been preigne ed with a gratuity of 
15,000 livres by the Board for the En- 
~couragement of Aris at Paris. 
It is expeéted that the public will foon 
be put in poffeflion of the moft accu:ate 
and complete details relative to Georgia, 
a country the prefent ftate of which is but 
little known. “Befides the expedition un- 
dertaken by the order of the Ruffian 
Government, and conduéted by Count 
Mufin Pufehkin who was accompa- 
nied by feveral literary and penile men, 
the Baron of Biberftein, who has alr ready 
publiiied a work’relative to the weit coaft 
of the Cafpian lea, is. now travelling in 
Georgia to examine évery thing relating 
to the culture and commerce of filk. 
x 
. Literary and Philjephical Intelligence. 
figure. 
(Feb. 1, 
Three engineers have likewife very re- 
cently becn difpatched to that country, ta 
Collect far:her information. 
A method of cleasing and preferving 
ftatues, defcribed by Vitruvius and Pliny, 
has lately been tried, with compiete fuc- 
ces, at Paris, on the beautiful Sculpture 
of the fountain of Grenelle. This pro- 
cefs, which confifts in flopping ail the 
pores of the marble with a mixture of oil 
of carnation and virgin wax, applicd hot 
to the marble, which muit lkewie be 
previoufly heated, preferves it, im future, . 
from thole biack {pots produced by humi- 
ity, and which dre nothing but the ve- 
geiation o! lichen, a fpecies of very fine 
mofs, the roots of which ftrike inro the 
pores of the marble, whofe furface they 
thus, in time, correde and defiroy. This 
Operation, performed with care, com- 
pletely fills the putes of the marbie. The 
furtace mult atierwards be rubbed with 
wax, and then with a fine linen cioths 
by which means a kind of -varnifl: is 
formed, that repels the water, and pre- 
vents the lichen from ftrikmg its roots 
inward, Ji is prefumed that the moft 
beautiful productions of antiquity were 
polithed in’ this manner with wax, and 
that the obvious utility of this procefs 
wil! foon bring it into general pra€tice. 
M. SaLVaGE, de oétor oF medicme, bas 
executed {ome coloured drawings, which 
have been engraved, reprefenting the 
beautiful ftatue called the Fighting Gla- 
diator, flayed in different poinis of view. 
His objedl, in this performance, is toren- 
der the work ufetul to the ftncy of the 
imitative aris, and principaliy thofe of 
beiee and feulpture. He has taken 
advantage of the means furnified by the 
military | holpital, to which he is attached, 
to place, in the attitude of the gladiator, 
different human fubjects, and tomodel all 
the molecular parts in fuch a manner, that . 
the fpeCator may difcaver, at firlt fight, 
the mechanifm of the muleles, which pro- 
duce the movement ef that beautiful 
He has, in this manner, repre - 
cated the gladiator flayed in different 
points of view, ia each of which the. 
figure is developed from the fkeleton to 
the kin. Toena able the pupil to under- 
ftand this anatomy, which, as the author 
himfelf admits, fhould have been execut- 
ed on a larger feale, he propofes to pre- 
cede it with fome engravings, containing 
the principles of the bones and mufeles, 
the head of the Apolio Belvedere diffegted 
in profile, and a front view of the bones 
of the head of the fame figure; and thefe 
will be tucceeded by feet and hands, de- 
figned after antiques. 
The 
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