The forms of telegraphic apparatus are numerous and interesting, though constructed on known principles. The more important are those of Froment, Bréguet, Garnier, in France, Berg and Soerrenden, of Sweden; the Company of the Eastern Railway, etc. The bell telegraph of Mirand has now many applications: its principle is that of Morse's telegraph.

Other examples of the application of electricity, are the Anemograph of Dumoncel, an instrument for measuring the direction, elevation, and force of the winds ;* a heat regulator for hot-houses and drying chambers; and a system of electric communication between railroad trains.

M. Henley of London, has on exhibition a magneto-electric machine made of powerful magnets for springing mines. Deleuil, Breton, and Bekking of Holland, have induction apparatuses for medical uses. There is nothing especially remarkable in them.

The exposition contains also models of the submarine cables which have been used in connection with telegraphs, and of those which are soon to be laid down between Italy and Algiers.

In another communication, I propose to allude to other machines and chemical products and arts represented at the Crystal Palace.

Zoological Society of Acclimation. Project of founding a Museum of Applied and Comparative Natural History.-This zoological society continues its labors and with important results. Being essentially pacific in its objects, it has entered into relations with the Imperial Economical Society of St. Petersburg, and established with that Society a system of exchanges of objects industrially useful.

This Russian Society has in view an end long since proposed for France by M. Guérin Meneville, that is to make a collection of all raw products raised and used in the country, and of specimens illustrating the series of transformations they undergo in the processes of the arts. It would include also objects injurious to the articles which man culti vates. In such a gallery, the agriculturist, the trader, and the practical man, will find whatever illustrates his own departments, and be able to make comparisons important to direct them in the various operations of the arts and trade.

The St. Petersburg Society has already made such a collection of the productions of Russia, and their transformations. It includes all kinds of wheat, from the grain to the flour, bran, and starch, &c., as well as models of machines employed in cultivation, &c., from the plough to the wind-mill and the implements of baking. So there is wool of various kinds, and the raw material, and all the tissues coarse and fine, &c.; and so with a multitude of objects, pertaining to the three kingdoms of nature.

The Zoological Society of Acclimation, not wishing to confine itself to the productions of France alone, has resolved to reserve the objects it may obtain by exchange for a "Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle appli quée et comparée," to contain the products of all countries so as to exhibit the differences between them.

Acclimation of the Angora goat.-The Society is trying to decide. whether the Angora goat can be acclimated. At their request, they

*This Journal, September, 1853.

have recieved from Abd-el-Kader, at Broussa (Asia Minor) a flock of goats from Angora, fifteen in number, which have been sent to the mountains of the south, centre, and east of France. We have seen some of them in the enclosures for acclimation of Dr. Sace at Wesser. ling (Haut Rhin), a valley possessing much that is curious in its industry, and of interest in the remains of ancient glaciers still traceable there. Two kids have been born since the goats were sent to Alsace, and as yet there is nothing to show that acclimation is impossible. The orientals doubt the success, and say that the texture of the wool chan. ges even for small distances in the same zone and the same region.

The region occupied by the Angora comprises a part of Central Galatia and a southwest portion of Paphlagonia, between the parallels of 39° 20′ and 41° 30′, and the meridians of 33° 20′ and 35° east of Paris, the surface of which is about 2350 square metric leagues. The goat avoids the highest mountains, not ascending beyond 1600 meters, according to M. Tchihatcheff, who has studied the animal in Asia Mi nor. It also keeps out of the lower valleys where the heat is high in summer. The village of Angora is the place where this goat is raised with the most success and in largest numbers. Its altitude is about 1120 meters and its climate is liable to great extremes.

One of the most striking characteristics of the Angora goat, is its strong attachment to its native soil: a removal, however slight, causes a change in the quality of the wool. M. Tchihatcheff observes that all attempts to transfer it to Constantinople, Smyrna, and other parts of Asia Minor, have been without permanent success, the wool of the second generation beginning to deteriorate.

We may hope from the success experienced in other cases of acclimation, that Asia Minor is not the only place where the Angora may be made to live and flourish. The Egyptian goose was brought to France from Egypt in 1799 by Geoffroy, senior, and his son finally succeeded in acclimating it.

Since these trials with the Angora were begun, M. Graells, director of the Museum at Madrid, has stated that a flock of one hundred of these goats was introduced into Spain in 1830, and that there are now two hundred of them in the mountains of the Escurial, and still another flock in the mountainous region of Huelva.

Academy of Sciences.-The universal exposition at Paris has had some effect on the Academy of Sciences in bringing distinguished men from all parts of Europe and Britain to its meetings. At one recent session, there were present MM. Liebig, Brewster, Wheatstone, De la Rive, H. Rose, Poggendorff, Rammelsberg, Dove, Steinheil, etc. At this Scientific Congress, the United States is worthily represented by Mr. T. S. Hunt, of Canada, whose numerous confining occupations as a member of the Jury at the Crystal Palace, have hindered him from pursuing his scientific labors. He has made a series of communica. tions to the Academy of Sciences, some of them treating on theoreti cal subjects of a profound character connected with great questions in philosophical chemistry now commencing to occupy the scientific world, and others specially on the geology of Canada.

Bibliographical Notices.-Astronomie Populaire, d'ARAGO, vol. ii, Paris: Gide and Baudry.-This volume is almost wholly devoted to the

Sun, the Zodiacal light and Comets. The theory on the physical constitution of the Sun; a careful essay on the Solar Spots; an examination of the Zodiacal light; a very complete treatise on Comets, give great interest to this volume. The author discusses the question whether the Sun is inhabited, and treats of the magnetic effects of the Sun on the compass.

He also describes the parallactic stand, the equatorial and the rotating dome of the Paris Observatory, as also the Polariscope lens of his invention.

Etudes et Lectures sur les Sciences d'Observation et leurs applicacations pratiques, by M. BABINET, Member of the Institute. 1 vol., 12mo. Paris, Mallet Bachelier. Price 2 francs.-This work is intended for popular reading. It contains several lectures, some of which were delivered at the periodical sessions of the five Academies of the Institute. One is entitled Extraordinary Movements of the Sea; another, Comets in the nineteenth century; another, The Electric Telegraph, in which M. Babinet states that he does not believe in the possi bility of uniting Europe and America across the Atlantic Ocean, and thinks the course by Behring Straits the only one practicable; another, On Astronomy in 1852, 1853; Aerial Perspective; The Stereoscope and binocular vision; and finally it closes with an interesting chapter entitled "Voyage dans le ciel." M. Babinet, a relative and friend of Arago, understands how to throw into his lectures the same charm and simplicity that characterised the popular public addresses of Arago. Etudes sur la géographie botanique de L'Europe et en particulier sur la végétation du plateau central de la France; by M. H. Lecoq, Professor of Botany in the Faculty of Sciences of Clermont. 4 vols., 8vo, with plates. Paris: Baillière.-The author, who has for thirty years been exploring the mountains of Auvergne and the central plateau of France, has been led to compare the facts observed there by himself with those recognised by him in other regions. No one understands Auvergne like M. Lecoq; to him all questions are referred relating to the geology of that country.

SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.

I. CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

1. On the relations between the boiling points, specific volumes and chemical constitution of bodies.-Since the appearance of his remarkable paper on the specific volumes of fluids, already noticed in this Journal, Kopp has published an elaborate memoir on densities, dilatations, and boiling points, confining himself however to a statement of his numerical results. In a still later publication he gives a brief summary of his conclusions which will be interesting to all chemists. With reference to boiling points the author finds a great number of facts which go to confirm the laws previously discovered by himself and already widely known. In a great number of comparisons of similar fluid bodies, the differences between the specific volumes taken at the boiling

points are found to be proportional to the differences between the form. ulas; thus the specific volumes of two different fluids differing in their formulas by x. C2H2 differ by nearly x. 22. Isomeric fluids are found to have equal specific volumes. In numerous cases in which oxygen replaces an equivalent amount of hydrogen, the specific volume remains nearly the same as before the substitution. There appears however in these cases to be a real though small increase in volume. On the other hand, however, carbon can replace hydrogen in fluid compounds without producing a change of volume. The new researches confirm the results already obtained, that it is impossible, in a general manner, to de duce the specific volume of a liquid from its empirical formula, without regarding the direct results of experiment as inaccurate. It becaine therefore necessary to return to hypotheses on the rational constitution of chemical compounds and then the results show the uncertainty of the premises. The views brought forward can therefore only be re garded as presenting the simplest possible general expressions for the specific volumes of liquids. For this purpose Gerhardt's classification appears to be an advantageous one; the author's mode of representing the volume of the elements in fluid compounds is the same as that already employed by him (Ann., vol. xcii, 1,) but the numerical values of the specific volumes of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are somewhat different from those formerly determined.

H

The specific volumes of fluids, which may be considered as derived from hydrogenas type, correspond very well with the values deduced from observation if we take the specific volume of carbon as 5.5, that of hydrogen also as 5.5, and that of oxygen as 6·1.

H

The specific volumes of those fluids which may be considered as derived from water O2 as type, may be satisfactorily deduced by giving the values above mentioned to carbon and hydrogen, but attribu ting to the oxygen, when it stands in water, as a specific volume of 39: 2 eq. of oxygen within a radical have the specific volume 2X6.1=122, but 2 eqs. of oxygen outside of a radical have the specific volume 2x3.9 78. The same assumptions serve for compounds which may be deduced from multiples of water as types. For the determination of the specific volumes of compounds containing only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, the author employed his own determinations, but for those of compounds containing other elements he made use of the ob servations of Pierre.

Sulphur occurs in its compounds in different ways, sometimes (1) re placing the oxygen in the typeO2 as in mercaptan, &c., sometimes (2) replacing carbon within a radical, as in sulphurous acid compared with carbonic acid, sometimes (3) replacing the oxygen within a radi cal, as in sulphocarbonic acid compared with carbonic acid C202 02C2S2 S2. In the first and second case the specific volumes of the sul phur compounds correspond satifactorily with the observations if we take the volume of sulphur as 113, but for the third case the specific volume of sulphur appears to be greater, namely, 14.3.

The specific volumes of a great number of chlorine compounds correspond well with those deduced by observation, if we assume the specific volume of chlorine as 22·8. In like manner, the volumes of iodine and bromine appear to be respectively 37.5 and 27.5. It is remarkable that bromine, as the author formerly conjectured, has the same specific volume, in its compounds at their boiling points, which it has at its own boiling point in the free state.

The specific volumes of but few compounds of other elements have been so far studied as to admit of accurate determinations of the vol. ures of the elements themselves. Phosphorus, arsenic and silicon appear to have the same specific volume, namely, 26. The specific volumes of SnCl2 and Ti Cl2 are equal, and suggest that tin and titanium have the same volume in their fluid compounds.-Ann. der Chemie und Pharmacie, xcv, 121.

2. On a new class of Organic Radicals.-WURTZ has succeeded in obtaining a number of double organic radicals, the existence of which had long been inferred, but which other chemists had not been able to produce. The author's investigations were undertaken in order to throw light upon the question whether the radicals methyl, ethyl, &c., have when isolated the same equivalents which they have in combination, or whether, as maintained by Gerhardt and Laurent, these equivalents must be doubled. If the molecules of ethyl, for example, on being set free unite with each other so as to form double molecules C4 H5 such as then we should expect to be able to replace one eq. of C4H5 ethyl in such a compound by one of some other similar radical, such as methyl for instance, so as to have a mixed or double radical like C4H5

C2H3} C2H3 Wurtz has obtained such compounds by two different processes. 1st, by decomposing by sodium an atomic mixture of the iodids of the two radicals. 2d, by the electrolysis of a mixture of the fatty acids of the series CnHnO4. The author in the first place gives an account of the properties of butyl and amyl as prepared and exam. ined by himself. Butyl is a colorless oily liquid which boils at 106° C. : its density is 0-7057 at 0° C. and the density of its vapor 4.070-4 vols. Amyl (long since isolated by Kolbe) is a limpid and mobile liquid, having a slightly aromatic odor; its density at 0° C. is 0.7413: it dilates strongly on passing from 0° to 20° when its density is only 0-7282. The density of its vapor is 4.956-4 vols. it boils at 158° C. Amyl deflects the plane of polarization to the right, but its power of rotation is very different in different specimens, and the author finds that the same is the case with amylic alcohol, which, however, deflects the plane of polarization to the left. By the action of perchlorid of phosphorus upon amyl, Wurtz obtained two chlorinated products having the formulas C10H10C C10H9Cl2

:

The radical ethyl-butyl as obtained by the first of the processes mentioned above is a light and mobile liquid, boiling at 62° C. Its density at 0° is 0-7011; the density of its vapor is 3.053-4 vols. Its formula is C4H5 C4 H5 eCH Ethyl-amyl has the formula CH}, boils at 88° and C8H9) SCOND SERIES, Vol. XX, No. 60.-Nov., 1855.

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