1810.] 
VARIETIES, 
f 965.4 oe 
LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL, 
Including Nultres of Works in Hand, Domestic and Foreign. 
Par 
YERHE late fire at Mr. Grier’ S, thre 
printer’s, in Salisbury-square, con- 
sumed upw ards of twenty-five thousand 
ounds?’ worth of the stock of Sir Richard 
hillips, estimated at the wholesale 
price; and among other works, nearly’ 
twi» thousand sets of the splendid Bible, 
by Mr. Hewlett. Owing to this catas- 
trophe, therefore, that superior work is 
likely to become very scarce, few setg 
having escaped the flames; dnd it not 
being worth while to re-print the twenty 
parts which were destroyed of so expen- 
siveawork. Unfortunately, a consider- 
able part of the manuscript of the seven 
concluding parts was also burnt, so that 
the continuation 1s unavoidably delayed 
for a month or two, ull Mr. H. can re. 
prepare his manuscript. 
The following works of the same pub- 
lisher were destroyed at the saine time: 
3,000 Mortimer’s Dictionary of Commences 
10,000 Joyce’s Arithmetic. 
250 Neale’s Spain. 
600 Military Essays. 
1,000 Cooper’s Surgery. 
1,100 Letters of a Nobleman to a Son at 
‘Fron and Oxford. 
’ 3000 Crocher’s Land Surveying, 
2,000 Mavor’s Natural History. 
1, 500 Smith’s Geography. 
700 Lambert’s Travels in America; 
besides other works of inferior ‘magni- 
tude. The Messrs. Srockvate lost also 
about two thousand five hundred pounds’ 
worth of books; and Mr. Gillet nearly 
ten thousand pounds in books and print- 
ing stock, besides his buildings. 
The conclusions drawn by Mr. Davey 
in his late publication on the Mariatic 
é,cid, will serve to extend and enlighten 
the theory of chemistry to a greater extent 
than any “of the brilliant discoveries for- 
merly made by this illustrious chemist, 
The following are his conclusions: be: 
ist, Thatthe oxymuriaticacid is (as fergie 
knowledge extends) a simple substance, whith 
may be classed in the same order of natural 
bodies as oxygen gas; being determined, like 
_ oxygen, tothe positive surface in voltaic com- 
binations, and like oxygen, combining with 
inflammable substances, producing heat and 
light. 
2dly. That its combinations with inflam- 
mable bodies are analogous to oxides and 
acids in their properties and powers of .com- 
bination, but they differ from them in being, 
for the most part, decomposable by water. 
3dly. That hydrogen is the basis of the 
muriatic acid, and oxymuriatic acid its acide 
fying principle. 
Montuiy Mao, No. 204, 
and most of the French chemists. 
Authentic Communications for this Article will always be thankfully received. 
4thly. That the compounds of phos- 
phorus, arsenic, tin, dc. with oxymuriatic 
acid, approach im their nature to acids, and 
neutralize ammonia and other salifiable bases. 
Sthiy. That the combination of ammonia 
with phosphorus, acidified by oxymuriatic acid, 
is.a peculiar compound, having properties tke 
those ofan earth, amd is not decomposable at 
an intense red heat. 
6thly. That oxymuriatic acid has a stronger 
attraction for most inflammable bedies than. 
oxygen ; and that on the hypothesis of the con- 
nection of electrical powers with chemical ate 
tractions, it must be highest in the scale of nee 
gative power; and that the oxygen, which is 
supposed to exist in oxymurjatic acid, has ale 
ways been expelled by it from water or oxides. 
“The French chemists questioned the 
accuracy of the inferences drawn by 
Mr. Davy from his electro-chemica! 
researches, respecting the nature of 
the alkalies and the earths; main- 
taining that the metallic bodies obtained 
from these substances, in place of being 
simple, as asserted. by. Mr. Davy, 
were compounds of the alkalies and 
earths with hydrogen; or, in other words, 
that the new bodies were hydrurets.. OL 
this opinion were Gay Lussac, Thenard, 
Ber= 
tholket ainong the rest warmly contested 
‘ 
the correctness of Mr. Davy’s inferences, 
and maintained the accuracy of the 
French conclusions. Ata meeting how- 
ever of the French Naiional Institute in 
the end of June, Messrs. Gay Lussac 
‘and Thenard, read a notice containing 
the results of a great variety of experi- 
ments on the new metals; from all of 
which they concluded, after a most rigd- 
rous investigation, that professor Davy 
was perfectly correct in his inferences; 
and, with a degree of frankness honours 
able to themselves, renounced their for- 
mer opinion that these new metals are 
hydrurets. 
It is well known to mathematicians 
that the doctrine of solid angles was left 
in a very impewect state by Euclid, and 
has been scaicely at all advanced by subs 
sequent geometers; one of the latest 
commentators on Luclid, Professor Play- 
fair, having remarked, that ‘* we have no 
way of expounding, even in the simplest 
cases, the ratio. which one of them bears 
to another.” Dr, Grecory, of the Mi-= 
litary Academy, has recently invented a 
Theory of Solid Angles, which is at once 
simple, satisfactory, and universal i its 
application, By means of this theory, 
2M meeting 
