water, by attaching a plate of gold, of two or three inches surface, to some part of the ship, so as to be constantly plunged in the water. Half an ounce of gold laminated, he conceives would be sufficient for the purpose of ascertaining if it is amalgamated after a long voyage. Great Fall of the Barometer on the 25th of December, 1821.-As there is reason to believe, that the extraordinary fall of the barometer on the 25th of December, 1821, was connected with the volcanic eruption of Eyafjeld Jokkul, Iceland, it becomes interesting to collect the height of the barometer on that day in different parts of Eu Toad found alive in the Centre of a Stone.-A specimen of a toad, which was taken alive from the centre of a mass of solid stone, has been sent to the College Museum of Edinburgh by Lord Duncan. Oil for Watch and Clock Work.-Good oil has long been a desideratum among watchmakers. Colonel Beaufoy remarks, that if olive oil be exposed to the rays of the sun for a considerable length of time, it becomes colourless, limpid, free from mucilage, and not easily congealable. He exposed two eight-ounce phials, nearly filled with this oil, to the solar beams for one or two years, and found this effect produced. The bottles should be opened occasionally to allow the gas to escape, or the cork may be taken out. The following process by Chevreul has been recommended for freeing oil for watch-work from all acid and mucilage. Put into a matrass or glass-flask, a portion of any fine oil, with seven or eight times its weight of alcohol, and heat the mixture almost to boiling, decant the clear upper stratum of fluid, and suffer it to cool; a solid portion of fatty matter separates, which is to be removed, and then the alcoholic solution evaporated in a retort or basin, until reduced to one-fifth its bulk. The elaine or fluid part of the oil will be deposited. It should be colourless and tasteless, almost free from smell, without action on infusion of litmus, having the consistence of white olive oil, and not easily congealable. Size and Shape of the Globules of Blood in different Animals-A number of very interesting results have recently been obtained by J. L. Prevost, M. D. and J. A. Dumas, respecting the form of the glo 1 4273 5000 5450 1 bules of blood of different animals, and the effects of transfusing the blood of one animal into another. The following are their measures of the diameters of the globules: Man, Dog, Rabbit, Pig, Hedgehog, Guinea Pig, Muscarden, Hutso of an English inch. Ass, 2175 7200 But while the globules of blood in different animals vary in size, they vary also in form. In the mammalia they are all spherical, while in birds they are elliptical, and vary only in the lengths of their greater axes. They are likewise elliptical in all cold blooded animals. They found also, that the colourless globule which exists in the centre of the particles of blood, has the constant diameter of booth of an inch in all animals, and whatever be the form of the globule which contains it-In their experiments on the transfusion of blood, they obtained many interesting results. When animals were bled till they fainted, they died when they were left alone, or when water or serum of blood, at the temperature of 100 Fahr. was injected into their veins. If, on the contrary, the blood of an animal of the same species was injected, every portion of the blood thrown in, reanimated the exhausted animal ; and when it had received as much as it lost, it began to breathe freely, to take food, and was finally restored to perfect health, When the injected blood was from an animal of a different species, but whose globules had the same form, though a different size, the animal was only partially relieved, and could seldom be kept alive for more than six days, the animal heat diminishing with remarkable rapidity. When the blood of an animal with spherical globules, is injected into a bird, it usually dies under the most violent nervous affections, as if under the influence of the most intense poison; and this takes place even when only a small quantity of blood has been lost. In a great number of cases, cats and rabbits were restored for some days by the injection of the blood of cows and sheep, even when the injection of the blood was not made till twelve or even twentyfour hours after the blood was extracted from the latter. The blood was kept in a fluid state in a cool place, either by taking away a. certain quantity of fibrine, or adding 1000th part of caustic soda. When the blood of the sheep was injected into ducks, they died after rapid and strong convulsions. [Bibl. Univers. Preservation of Grain in Granaries of Cast-Iron.--In order to preserve grain for any length of time, from those insects which habitually devour it, and which cannot exist in air hygrometrically dry, M. Clement suggested the propriety of constructing granaries of castiron, into which no air should enter till it has passed through a body of unslaked lime. He proposed also some contrivances for allowing the expanded air to escape, and for inspecting the grain when neces The saving of manual labour in turning over the grain is one 'vantages of this plan. Various useful suggestions relative to "ill be found in the Quarterly Journal, No. xxv. p. 164. MUSEUM. FROM THE LONDON MAGAZINE. a DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING. To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with the forced product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of quality and breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts of his own.-Lord Foppington in the Relapse. An ingenious acquaintance of my own was so much struck with this bright sally of his Lordship, that he has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality. At the hazard of losing some credit on this head, I must consess, that I dedicate no inconsiderable portion of my time to other people's thoughts. I dream away my life in others' speculations. I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me. I have no repugnances. Shaftsbury is not too genteel for me, nor Jonathan Wild too low. I can read any thing which I call a book. There are things in that shape which I cannot allow for such. In this catalogue of books which are no books—biblia a-biblia~I reckon Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket Books (the Literary excepted), Draught Boards bound and lettered at the back, Scientific Treatises, Almanacks, Statutes at Large; the works of Hume, Gibbon, ; Robertson, Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and, generally, all those volumes which "no gentleman's library should be without;" the Histories of Flavius Josephus (that learned Jew), and Paley's Moral Philosophy. With these exceptions, I can read almost any thing. I bless my stars for a taste so catholic, so unexcluding. I confess that it moves my spleen to see these things in books clothing perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting out the legitimate occupants. To reach down a well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what “ seem its leaves,” to come bolt upon a withering Population Essay. To expect a Steele, or a Farquhar, and find-Adam Smith. To view a well arranged assortment of blockheaded Encyclopædias (Anglicanas or Metropolitanas) set out in an array of Russia, or Morocco, when a tythe of that good leather would comfortably re-clothe my shivering folios; would renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund LullyI have them both, reader-to look like himself again in the world. I never see these impostors, but I long to strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils. To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be lavished upon all kinds of books indiscriminately. I would not dress a set of Magazines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille, or halfbinding (with Russia backs ever), is our costume. A Shakspeare, or a Milton (unless the first editions), it were mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel. The possession of them confers no distinction. The Vol. 1. No. 2.-Museum. N exterior of them (the things themselves being so common), strange to say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of property in the owner. Thomson's Seasons, again, looks best (I maintain it) a little torn, and dog's-eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves, and worn out appearance, nay, the very odour (beyond Russia), if we would not forget kind feelings in fastidiousness, of an old "Circulating Library" Tom Jones, or Vicar of Wakefield! How they speak of the thousand thumbs, which have turned over their pages with delight!of the lone sempstress, whom they may have cheered (milliner, or harder-working mantua-maker) after her long days-needle toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents! Who would have them a whit less soiled? What better condition could we desire to see them in? In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from binding. Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and all that class of perpetually self-reproductive volumes-Great Nature's Stereotypes-we see them individually perish with less regret, because we know the copies of them to be "eterne." But where a book is at once both good and rare-where the individual is almost the species, and when that perishes, We know not where is that Promethean torch such a book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by his Duchess-no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep safe such a jewel. Not only rare volumes of this description, which seem hopeless ever to be reprinted; but old editions of writers, such as Sir Philip Sidney, Bishop Taylor, Milton in his prose works, Fuller-of whom we have reprints; yet the books themselves, though they go about, and are talked of here and there, we know, have not endenizened themselves (nor possibly ever will) in the national heart, so as to become stock books-it is good to possess these in durable and costly covers. -I do not care for a First Folio of Shakspeare. You cannot make a pet book of an author whom every body reads. I rather prefer the common editions of Rowe and Tonson, without notes, and with plates, which, being so execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to the text; and without pretending to any supposeable emulation with it, are so much better than the Shakspeare gallery engravings, which did. I have a community of feeling with my countrymen about his Plays; and I like those editions of him best, which have been oftenest tumbled about and handled.-On the contrary, I cannot read Beaumont and Fletcher but in Folio. The Octavo editions are painful to look at. I have no sympathy with them, nor with Mr. Gifford's Ben Jonson. If they were as much read as the current editions of the other poet, I should prefer them in that shape to the older one. I do not know a more heartless sight than the reprint of the Anatomy of Melancholy. What need was there of unearthing the bones of that fantastic old great man, to expose them in a winding-sheet of the latest edition to modern censure? what hapless stationer could dream of Burton ever becoming popular?-The wretched Malone could not do worse, when he bribed the sexton of Stratford church to let him whitewash the painted effigy of old Shakspeare, which stood there, in rude but lively fashion depicted, to the very colour of the cheek, the eve, the eye-brow, hair, the very dress he used to wear the only authentic testimony we had, however imperfect, of these curious parts and parcels of him. They covered him over with a coat of white paint. By —, if I had been a justice of peace for - Warwickshire, I would have clapt both commentator and sexton fast in the stocks for a pair of meddling sacrilegious varlets. I think I see them at their work—these sapient trouble-tombs. Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names of some of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear—to mine, at least than that of Milton or of Shakspeare? It may be, that the latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The sweetest names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, are, Kit Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley. Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Fairy Queen for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes sermons? Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played, before you enter upon him. But he brings his music—to whích, who listens, had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears. Winter evenings—the world shut out with less of ceremony the gentle Shakspeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest-or his own Winter's Tale These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud-to yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listening. More than one-and it degenerates into an audience. Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye to glide over solely. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness. A newspaper, read out, is intolerable. In some of the Bank offices it is the custom (to save so much individual time) for one of the clerks -who is the best scholar—to commence upon the Times, or the Chronicle, and recite its entire contents aloud pro bono publico. With every advantage of lungs and elocution-the effect is singularly vapid. -In barbers’ shops, and public-houses, a fellow will get up, and spell out a paragraph, which he communicates as some discovery. Another follows with his selection. So the entire journal transpires at length by piece-meal. Seldom -readers are slow readers, and, without this expedient no one in the company would probably ever travel through the contents of a whole paper. Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappoiatment. What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Nando's, keeps the paper! I am sick of hearing the waiter bawling out incessantly, “ the Chronicle is in hand, Sir. As in these little Diurnals I generally skip the Foreign News—the Debates and the Politics—I find the Morning Herald by far the most entertaining of them. It is an agreeable miscellany, rather than a newspaper, Coming in to an inn at night-having ordered your supper-what a |
