1809.] 
fietor of ill-conditioned sores, reduces 
them to a perfectly healthy, or good- 
conditioned state, and thickens and di- 
minishes the discharge. — 
Mr. W. J. Hooxer, F.LS. of Nor- 
wich, is lately returned from Iceland, 
where he spent the summer, ip investi- 
gating the natural history of that country. 
He travelled with a retinue of Icelanders, 
as far up the country as the perennial 
snow would permit; pitching his tent 
wherever interesting objects, such as the 
Geyser springs, invited. He made a 
large collection of specimens of quadru- 
peds, birds, insects, plants, and mmerals. 
He likewise purchased, in different places, 
Icelandic books, weapons, dresses, &c. 
at high prices. It is to be regretted, 
however, that nearly the whole of his 
labours were lost, by the vessel in which 
he embarked for London taking fire, and 
being burned to the water’s-edge. The 
crew and passengers were saved by ano- 
ther vessel, which fortunately happened 
to heave in sight. Mr. Hooker, after 
whom the president of the Linnzan 
Society named his new genus of mosses, 
is already well known to the lovers of 
Natural History, as the discoverer of 
Buxbaumia aphylla, as well as by his 
scientific drawings for the valuable 
work on’Fuci, by his friend Dawson 
Turner, of Yarmouth; and his descrip- 
tions of several mosses, gathered by Dr. 
Buchanan, during his journey to Nepal, 
published in the last volume of the Lin- 
nan Transactions. 
The Bath and West of Englaud Agri- 
cultural Society, have published a report 
on the important subject of wool, in 
which they say, ; 
“It is with the greatest satisfaction that 
they are able to state, what Has clearly ap- 
peared toa large majority of their members, 
who have duly investigated the subject, that 
wool grown in Great Britain, is equally fit 
‘for ali the purposes of the manufacture, with 
the best which can be exported from Spain, 
or other countries. . More especially they 
have, for two or more successive years, found 
that woo] from a cross between the original 
Merino Ram and Ryeland Ewes, and from 
their posterity, variously intermixed, for se- 
veral generations without any further recur- 
rence to the pure breed, has, in every in- 
stance in which the trial has been made, 
produced cloth and casimir, finer than those 
manufactured from the most noted Spanish 
piles, for the express purpose of composition. 
:As, however, doubts still remain widely ex- 
tended amongst persons most immediately 
interested in the decision, the Bath and West 
Moniuty Mae, No, 192. 
Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. 
513 
of England Society, in order to put this ques- 
tion to atrial, from which there can be no 
appeal, offer a premium of cight guineas to 
the giower, and ten guineas to the maszu- 
facturer, of the finest piece of navy blue 
broad cloth, dyed in the wool, not less than 
twenty three yards in length, which shall 
be exhibited on Monday, December 18, 1809, 
made from any clothing wool from the sheep 
tribe, grown in any country 3 and also pre« 
miums of six and four guineas to the grower 
and manufacturer of a piece of uniform white 
casimir, not less than twenty five yards in 
length. In order to qualify a competitor for 
this premium, the name of the aianufac= 
turer, and pile, or species of wool, and of the 
grower, (if British,) to be contained in @ 
sealed paper, having on the outside a mark, 
indicating the piece of wool to which it 
refers, and which it must accompany. Such 
paper will not be opened till the examining 
committee shall have made their report on 
the merits of the respective cloths; which 
report wiil be pronounced from the chair, on 
the day of the annual meeting.” 
FRANCE, 
M. G. B. Sace has ascertained the 
existence of alumine in meteoric stones$ 
a circumstance not noticed by Klaproth, 
Fourcroy, or Vauquelin, who have given 
analyses of those substances. hts he 
ascribes to their having employed f ton 
through the medium of alkalis, which is 
known to alter the nature of some earthse 
Having vitriolized some of the meteoric 
stones of Aigle and Salies, near Viile= 
franche, in the Lionese, M. Sage cbs 
tained alum from both, but in unequal 
proportions, the former yielding ones 
fourth, but the latter not more tnaa 
one-eivhth. As the fracture of stones 
of this description shows, very imper~ 
fectly, the arrangement and brilhancy of 
the native iron which they contain, the 
same chemist, in order to examine it on 
alarge surface, has had a vase turned 
from an aerolite of Salles. It exhibits 
parcels of iron of irregular configurations, 
which have a silvery lustre, intermingled 
with very small spots of a greenish yel- 
luw, disseminated in a quartzose gangue 
of ashen grey. 
M. Rampasse has discovered in an old 
quarry, upon a hill, near Bastia, in 
Corsica, a calcareous earth, embedded 
in a stratum of calcareous stone, and 
containing, among other substances, va- 
rious kinds of bones. Several specimens 
of these he has transmitted to Paris for 
the inspection of M. Curvier, who states, 
that amongthem is a head well charac 
terized, which must have belonged to the 
3U genus 
