1809.] 
Dane’s Excursion in Britain, to consist 
of two or three small eetavo volumes. 
Lhe Rev, Dr. Wasiuboursx, of Wellin- 
borough, is revising and correcting Bishop 
Reynolds on Rectesiastes, Sc. which 
willappear in the course of afew months. 
Su Jous Carr has for some time been 
employed in revising his poems for the 
press. ‘They wall form anoctavo volume, 
with a portwait; butwa few copies will be 
primed in quarto. 
Mr. Henry Wepppr will speedily 
publish ana two volumes, octavo, thie 
Dramatie Works of Jomn Forp, with 
an dnitroduction and Explanatory Notes. 
The same gentleman is also engeged on‘a 
work entitled, Metrical Romances of the 
‘bhirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth 
Centuries, pwhlished trem ancient. ma- 
nuseripts, aud illustrated by an Intre- 
duction, Notes, aud Glossary. This work 
will make three volues, crown oc- 
tava, 
Mr. A. Murray, Fellow padi Anti- 
quavian Society of Edinburgh, and Se- 
cretary for Foreign Correspondence, will 
soon publish in quanto, Researches into 
the Onigin and Affinity of the Greek and 
Leutonic Languages. 
The Crede of Pieral Plowman is print- 
ing i a small aramee volume, with a 
black letter type, the text accurately col- 
lated watl the printed copies, and ecca- 
sionally corrected by an inspection of the 
existing manuscript.’ An histerical In- 
troduction will be prefixed, andthe poem 
copiously illustrated wath notes. 
Ata mecting of the Wernerian Natu- 
ral History Society of Edinburgh, held on 
the 8th of April, was read the first part 
of a Description of the Mineral Strata of 
Clackmananshire, trom ithe bed of the+ri- 
ver Forth to the base of the Ochils, ilus+ 
trated- by a voluminous and very distinct 
plan or section of those strata, executed 
from actual survey and from the register 
of the berings and workings for ceal, in 
W.N, Lvskine of..Mat’s estate in’ that 
district, communicated by Mr. Rosenr 
Dabo, Engiweer. dn this ‘frst part ‘he 
treated only of the alluvial strata; and in 
continuing the subject he intends to i+ 
Justrate it sull farther by exinbiting spe- 
cimens of the rocks themselves.—Mr. 
Cuanwes Stewart laid before the so- 
wiety, a list of insects found ‘by ‘him in 
the neighbourhood of Kdinburgh, with 
intreductory remarks on the study of 
entomology. It would appear that the 
neighbourbeod of Edinburgh affords ne 
very peculiar insects, and but iew rare 
@nes. ~The list contained about four 
Montuty Mac, Ne. 186, 
Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. 599 
hundred species, which, Mr. Stewart 
stated, must’be considered the most eome 
mon, as ‘they were: ‘collected mm the course - 
of two seasons only, and without very 
favourable opportunities, ~1t was produ- 
ced he added inerely as ‘an incitement to 
younger and inore zealous entomologists. 
—Ata subsequent meeting ofthis society, 
on the 18th of May, the second part of 
Mr. Buld’s interesting Mineralogical De- 
scription of Clackmananshire was read, 
giving a particular account of two very 
remarkable slips or shafts in the strata, 
near one thousand feetm depth, and ‘by 
means of swhich the math coal-field of the 
country is divided into three fields, on all 
of which extensive collieries have been 
erected.—The Rev. Mr. Fremine, of 
Bressay, laid before the society, an out- 
dine of the Flora of Linlithgowshire, spe- 
cifying only such plants as are omitted 
by Mr. Lightfoot, or are marked as un- 
common by Dr. Smith. This, he stated, 
was to be considered as the first ofa series 
of communications illustrative of the na- 
tural history of his native county. —Mr, 
P. Wacker stated a curious fact in the 
history of the common cel, A number 
of cels old and young were found in @_ 
subterraneous pool, at the bottom of an 
old quarry, which had been filled up and 
its surface ploughed and cropped for 
more than tweive years past.—The se- 
cretary read a letter from the Rev. Mr. 
Maciran, of Small Isles, mentioning the 
ote of a large sea-snake, between 
seventy and eighty teet long, among the 
Hebrides in Jane 1808. He also produ 
ced a list of about one-hundred tberba- 
ceous plants, and two-hundred cryptoga- 
mia found m the King’s park, Edinburgh, 
and ‘not enumerated m Mr. Yalden’s Ca. 
talogue of Plants, growing there; com- 
amunicated by Mr. G. Don, of : Forfar, 
late superintendant of the Royal Botanic 
Garden, at Edinburgh, 
Scientific men hae often had occasion 
to regret the difticulty of procuring fibres 
suficiently fine and elastic for micros 
meters. The dificuley of obtaining sul- 
ver wire of a diameter small enough 
miduced “Mr. Troughton to use the spi 
ders web, which he ‘has found so fine, 
opaque, and elastic, as to answer all the 
purposes ef practical astronomy. But 
as it is only the stretcher, or Jong line, 
which supports the web that possesses 
these valuable properties, the difficulty 
of procuring it has compelled many op- 
ucinns and practical astronomers to em- 
ploy the raw fibres of unwrought silk,-or 
what is still worse, the coarse Silver wire 
41 manufactured 
SSS 
SO 
——— 
