148 New Inventions and Patents. posing on the stone a drawing traced on paper with the prepared ink. All kinds of close calcareous stone of an even and fine grain, which are capable of taking a good polish with pumice stone, and having the quality of absorbing water may be used for lithography. Composition of the Ink.-Heat a glazed earthen vessel over the fire; when it is hot introduce one pound by weight of white Marseilles soap, and as much mastic in grains; melt these ingredients, and mix them carefully; then incorporate five parts by weight of shell lac, and continue to stir it; to mix the whole, drop in gradually a solution of one part of caustic alkali in five times its bulk of water. Caution, however, must be used in making this addition, because should the ley be put in all at once, the liquor will ferment, and run over. When the mixture is completed by a moderate heat, and frequent stirring, a proportionate quantity of lamp-black must be added, after which a sufficient quantity of water must be poured in to make the ink liquid. Drawing. This ink is used for drawing on the stone in the same manner as on paper, either with a pen or pencil; when the drawing on the stone is quite dry, and an impression is required, the surface of the stone must be wetted with a solution of nitric acid, in the proportion of fifty to one of water; this must be done with a soft sponge, taking care not to make a friction in the drawing. The wetting must be repeated as soon as the stone appears dry; and when the effervescence of the acid has ceased, the stone is to be carefully rinsed with clean water. Printing. While the stone is moist, it should be passed over with the printer's ball charged with ink, which will adhere only to those parts not wetted. A sheet of paper properly prepared for printing is then to be spread on the stone, and the whole committed to the press, or passed through a roller. To preserve the drawing on the stone from dust, when not in use, a solution of gum arabic is passed over it, which can be easily removed by a little water. Instead of ink, chalk crayons are sometimes used for drawing upon the stone or upon paper; from which a counterproof is taken upon the stone. The crayons are thus made,-three parts of soap, two parts of tallow, and one part of wax are all dissolved together in an earthen vessel. When the whole is well mixed, a sufficient quantity of lamp Sept. 1, black, called Frankfort black, to give it an intense colour is added; the mixture is then poured into moulds, where it must remain till it is quite cold, when it will be proper to be used as chalk pencils. V. List of NEW PATENTS. JOHN NEILSON, of Linlithgow, Scotland, glue-manufacturer, for an improvement in the tanning and tawing of hides and skins; and in the dying or colouring of leather, and other articles. June 22, 1818. ALBERT ROUX, of Yyerden, in the Canton of Vaud, in Switzerland, Doctor in Divinity, for an improvement, or improvements, applicable to locks of different descriptions; communicated to him by a foreigner, residing abroad. June 30, 1818. JOHN BAIRD, of Lanark, Scotland, North Britain, manager for the New Shots Iron Company; for various improvements in the manufacturing and making of cast-iron boilers, used for the purpose of evaporating the juice of the sugar-cane or syrup derived from thence, by means of annealing them in a furnace or kiln of a peculiar construction. July, 1818. WILLIAM BAILEY, of High Holborn, ironmonger, for certain improvements in sashes, sky-lights, and frames, generally used for the purpose of receiving, holding, and containing glass for the admission of light, and the exclusion of rain and snow; and also for making roofs or coverings for houses and various other buildings. July, 11, 1818. JAMES MILTON, late of Paisley, in North Britain, but now of Ashtonunder-Line, Lancaster, for a new species of loom-work, whereby figures or flowers can be produced in a mode hitherto unknown upon any fabric of cloth, while in the process of weaving, whether such fabric be linen, cotton, woollen, silk, or any of them intermixed. July 11, 1818. JOHN RICHTER, of Holloway, Middlesex; for certain improvements in the apparatus of utensils used for distillation, evaporation, and condensation, and that the same are new in this country; communicated to him by a foreigner residing abroad. July 14, 1818. RICHARD ORMROD, of Manchester, Lancashire, iron-founder; for an improvement in the manufacturing of copper, or other metal cylinders, or rollers for calico printing. July 22, 1818. URBANUS SARTOREES, of Winchester-street, London, merchant; for an improvement in the method of produc 1818.] Reports of Public Institutions. ing ignition in fire arms, by the condensa tion of atmospheric air. July 22, 1818. HENRY CREIGHTON, of the city of Glasgow, civil engineer; for a new 149 method of regulating the admission of steam into pipes or other vessels, used for the heating of buildings, or other places. July 22, 1818. REPORTS OF PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. I. Report of the Committee of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, and for the Reformation of Juvenite Offenders. THIS Institution originated three years ago in the exertions of a few individuals, whose philanthropy was excited by the cases of several boys convicted of capital offences. Having entered upon an inquiry into the subject, it was found that juvenile delinquency existed in the metropolis to a most alarming extent; that a system was in action by which unfortunate children were organized into gangs; that they resorted to houses where they planned their enterprizes, and afterwards divided the plunder. Upon this a public meeting was convened, and a society formed, the object of which was to obtain information respecting the nature and causes of the evil, and to ascertain the most efficient means of removing or diminishing it. With this view the members of the committee arranging themselves into subdivisions, visited the prisons in and about London; examined the boys apart; pursued their enquiries among the parents, friends, or associates of the culprits; kept a journal of cases, in which all particulars were carefully recorded; and in short adopted every measure likely to ensure an accurate knowledge of the extent of the evil and the causes of its increase. In the present report these causes are stated to be 1. the neglect of moral and religious education: 2. the want of suitable employment for children in early life: 3. the want of necessaries to support life. Besides these general sources of early vice, there are others of a peculiar character, as,-1. Flash houses, where boys and girls frequently associate with common thieves and prostitutes.-2. The fairs in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, where every species of debauchery and profligacy is practised eighty-two days in the space of seven months.-3. The severity of the penal laws, which, instead of checking, may be said to give encouragement to crime, in consequence of the leniency of Juries, and the impunity shewn to early offenders. But though the committee dwell emphatically upon One these points, they attribute the prevalence of juvenile delinquency, and the general increase of crime rather to the present state of our prison discipline, which is more disgraceful to a moral nation than any or all of the causes that have been enumerated. the report is very full, and it is to be Upon this head hoped that means will be devised for the correction of this crying abuse. powerful remedy, which has suggested itself to the committee, and deserves public attention, is that of establishing a Reformatory for boys, combining in an eminent degree these most important requisites:-The power of complete and constant inspection, classification and facilities for carrying on various branches of labour. This is the tried plan of the Philanthropic Institution in St. George's Fields, the success of which holds out a sufficient inducement for an extension of such foundations over the kingdom. We are sorry to find from this report, that "the expenses necessarily incurred have exhausted the very limited funds of the Society;" but we trust that when their object becomes generally known, the co-operation of the benevolent will not be wanting to enable them to go on with renewed vigour in this good work; further particulars of which may be known of WILLIAM ALLEN, Esq. Plough Court, Lombard Street; THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, Esq. Spitalfields; SAMUEL HOARE, JUN. Esq. Lombard Street; and DR. LUSHINGTON, Doctor's Commons. 11. Statement of the Society for the Sup pression of Mendicity. The Board of Management have taken a house in Red Lion Square for the transaction of business, and another contiguous, where soup is served to those who produce tickets; besides which, temporary lodging is provided for such as would otherwise be consigned to the streets. Tickets are sold to non-subscribers at two-pence each; by which means the objects of charity will have a larger quantity of wholesome nourishment than can be elsewhere procured for that sum. When a mendicant applies with one of these tickets, if he be not already known at the office, an exa 150 Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. mination takes place by the sitting member of the Board, in order to ascertain the state of the beggar, and to provide for his further relief, if he be an object of real distress; but if the applicant proves to be an impostor, or a confirmed vagrant, the Secretary is instructed to put the law in force. The following table exhibits a pretty correct idea of the state of mendicity, and of the utility of this Institution: Obtained parochial relief by the interference of the Society Provided with employment and partly clothed Relieved and sent to parishes in Relieved and sent to sea 74 34 22 16 15 19 Admitted into workhouses Taken into the care of the Scot's 3 [Sept. 1, amination as to their acquaintance with the leading doctrines of christianity, and the facts of scripture history; their proficiency in all which delighted and astonished the meeting. Honorary medals and premiums were presented by the chairman to such of the pupils as had peculiarly distinguished themselves. After the examination the Rev. Dr. Ritchie read the report of the directors during the past year, and one from the committee of ladies, as to the internal management of the Institution, and education of the female pupils, both of which were stated to be altogether excellent. Upon a motion for recommending the 29 Institution to the attention of the various counties and presbyteries, it was observed that the number of deaf and dumb persons in Scotland was not less than eight hundred. Nothing, therefore, the measure here detailed for making could be more judiciously imagined than the charity generally known by a perambulation of the tutor with a select number of his scholars. In 1814. Mr. Kinniburgh went to Glasgow with a few of his pupils, who underwent two examinations in public, in presence of crowded meetings of the inhabitants. An auxiliary Society was immediately formed there, by the aid of whose contributions a considerable number of additional pupils have ever since received the benefits of instruction in the Institution. Encouraged by this success, Mr. Kinniburgh and a few of his pupils were sent last autumn to the north. His first public examination was at Dundee, whence he proceeded along the coast to Aberdeen and Inverness, and returned by Perth. He exhibited the progress of his pupils at every considerable town upon this route, and meetings have been held in consequence at several places for the formation of auxiliary Societies, in aid of the parent Institution. 4 36 19 49 Did not return as ordered 23 400 An annual subscription of one guinea constitutes a governor; and a donation of ten guineas within the year, a life governor. III. Report of the Institution for the adopted with equal advantage in the This proceeding, we think, might be southern part of the island, by which means similar Institutions would doubt be established in the principa cities and county towns of England. PROCEEDINGS OF PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETIES. 1. ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT LISBON. On the 24th of June this learned body held a public Session. Its proceedings were prefaced by a short discourse pro no nounced by the Vice-President, the Marquis of Borba, one of the governors of the kingdom. The Secretary then made a statement of the labours of the Society, and of the memoirs which had 1818.] Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. been presented and read during the preceding year. Sebastian Francisco de Mendo Trigoso afterwards read a memoir on the five first editions of The Lusiad of Camoens. He was followed by Mattheus Valente de Conto, who read an introduction to a memoir which had gained a prize, relative to the programma of the Academy, upon the demonstration of rules given by Wronski, for the general reduction of equations. Joseph Maria Soares read a compendious statement of the General History of Medicine, from the beginning of the Portuguese monarchy: this statement is intended to form an introduction to his History of Medical Science in Portugal. Sebastian Francisco de Mendo Trigoso read a memoir on the establishment of the Arcadia in Lisbon, and on its influence in the restoration of Portugese literature. The author of this memoir is Francisco Manoel Trigoso de Aragam Morato. After these proceedings, the academician Ignacio Antonio da Fonseca Benevides read an historical recapitulation of the labours of the Vaccine Institution, in the course of the preceding year. Time would not admit of the reading of other memoirs, and the following were therefore omitted: - One by Francisco Elias Roderigues da Silveira, upon medical empiricism; another by Antonio de Aranjo Travassos, upon the means of abbreviating typographical labour; and a third, by Constantino Botelho de Lacerda Lobo, on the unequal temperature of the solar rays, separated by the prism. It appears that the following works were printed by the Academy within the last 12 months:The fifth volume of the Chronological Index of the Portuguese Laws and Edicts, by the Desembargador (the Judge), John Peter Ribeiro: a Treatise on the Practice of Medicine, by Joseph Pinheiro de Freitas Soares; and the second part of the third volume of the Memoirs of the Academy. 2.-FRENCH INSTITUTE. Public Sitting of the Royal Academy of The Sitting of the 17th of July was opened by the announcement of the prizes proposed for competition in the years 1819 and 1820; next was read the decision pronounced on the memoirs sent for the competition of 1818; and finally the prizes were proclaimed. The subject proposed for 1818 was the combination in one Memoire of all that can be collected respecting the 151 Annals of the Lagides, or the Chronology of the Kings of Egypt, from the death of Alexander the Great, to the subjugation of the country by the Romans, after the death of Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes. The prize was adjudged to the Memoire enregistered under No. 1, the motto of which was, Et ament indulgere periti, (The author is M. J. J. Champollion Figleac). The Academy deemed worthy of honourable mention a Memoire, having for its motto the following words of Tacitus: Opus aggredior, opimum casibus, atrox præliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa pace sævum. After this proclamation, which was loudly applauded, M. Raoul Rochette read, for M. Dacier, a biographical notice on the late Ginguené, or rather on the works of that estimable man, whose political opinions seem not always to have enjoyed the advantage of being approved by the Secretary General. The author of the notice pronounced the sincerest eulogy on all that is good in the works of the deceased, and all that was still better in his private character. We shall not notice a learned Memoire on the discoveries made in several islands of Asia, from ancient times up to the period of the voyages of Magellan; it is one of those productions, the merits of which cannot be decided on without mature consideration; it is impossible to analyse it from a single reading. The author is M. Walckenaer, a man distin guished for learning. The general observations on the Egyptian Medals, by M. Tochon d'Annecy, are probably good; but though read by M. Quatre-Mere de Quincy, but little attention was paid to them; and the President finding it would be difficult to enter on another subject, without incurring the risk of a total desertion, prudently closed the Sitting a quarter of an hour before the usual time. All these memoirs were replete with sound erudition, though the subjects precluded the possibility of sacrificing to the Graces. Perhaps the most interesting, though we have omitted men tioning it in its proper place, was a notice by M. Dacier, on the life and writings of the celebrated geographical en gineer, David Niebuhr, who died in Saxony on the 25th of April, 1814. It abounds in facts hitherto but little known; it was listened to with an unusual degree of attention, and the interest was 152 The Basso-Relievo at the New Custom House. [Sept. 1, increased by the manner in which M. vestigated, would afford certain indicaRaoul Rochette read the Essay. 3.-ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. In one of the recent Sittings of this Academy at Paris, M. Percy, in the name of the Committee, presented a Report on the memoir of Dr. Laennec, Physician to the Necker Hospital, relative to a new mode of demonstration, proper to develope, with greater exactitude than any yet adopted, the various diseases of the lungs and of the heart. The properties which solid bodies possess, the tube, the trump, or portevoix, &c. of transmitting to the ear even the feeblest sounds and impulses, had suggested to M. Laennec the idea of studying, with the assistance of similar instruments, the different sounds, intonations, and movements which take place within the interior of the chest, and their coincidence or sympathies with a state of health or of disorder. The voice, the respiration, the noises within the throat, and the oscillations of the heart, so in tions of several maladies, which, in the present state of science, we could scarcely have thought of. One of these indications, among others, showed the existence of ulcers in the lungs, their extent, their state of greater or lesser fullness, the nature and consistence of the matter which they contained. The instrument which M. Laennec used for these purposes was a cylinder of wood, which, according to the nature of the proposed examination, should be solid, pierced from one end to the other by a straight canal or cavity, or widened at one extremity in the manner of a horn. According to the favourable manner in which this improvement is spoken of in the memoir, it appears that the extent of the results already obtained, or those which may rationally be looked for, by means of the above instrument of demonstration, is not less remarkable than its simplicity. FINE ARTS. THE BASSO-RELIEVO AT THE NEW CUSTOM-HOUSE. THE absurd and unjust assertion which has been made by prejudiced writers, that the climate of this island and the temperament of its inhabitants must necessarily prevent the successful progress of the arts, has been, even in our own times, triumphantly disproved. We do not-we dare not challenge a competition with the great masters of the ancients, but we confidently invite a comparison of the late works of the English school with the contemporaneous productions of any other: and we are convinced that the result of a dispassionate examination would not merely place us on a level with our neighbours, but would assign to us a proud and a deserved pre-eminence. Our best artists are now sedulously employed in the study of nature, and have successfully retraced their steps to that unadulterated source of information. They are convinced of the justice of the observation of one of our own poets: First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard, which is still the same: At no time could the ELGIN MARBLES have arrived so happily, or have con tributed so effectually to the progress of the cause of art. The eyes of the artist and the amateur are now cleared of the film which has long oppressed and distorted their vision: they have already begun to recur to nature and the simplest principles of composition, and in these admirable works they find an illustration of the efficacy of such a course of study: they behold all that is beautiful in nature, sublimated and refined by art, but still remaining untouched and unaltered in its essential qualities. There are, however, some who err as much in anticipating a sudden renovation in the arts of design, as those who have prophesied their eternal debasement. We have ever been foremost in our admiration of the Elgin marbles. We consider them to be the purest models of imitation, and were ardent in our hopes of the amended taste which their presence in this country would be likely to induce; but we are too old to believe that even their radiance taste which had been so long accumuwould instantly dispel the clouds of bad lating. The rising race of artists will exhibit more than the present; the improvements which they are calculated to effect, the next in succession will evince still more; and thus will they act in pro |