isk, Riousa, by professors Goldbach and Panthner, attached to the repository for charts at St. Petersburgh. The latter has also established, at the expense of the society, barometers and thermometers at the above places, in order to obtain some useful observations.

M. Fischer undertook the natural history department he was accompanied in his excursion by M. Drouginine, secretary to the society; and by M. Gorke, one of the pupils at the university of Moscow. From the lateness of the season they procured but few plants or insects, but they were more fortunate in their mineralogical pursuits. Petrifactions of all kinds, several mineral springs rich in iron and carbonick acid, a good clay for earthen ware, Labrador stone, garnets in granite and in gneus, granatite in gneus, and a new earthy substance, were procured by them. This new substance is of a very fine lavender blue, and is found in veins several lines thick between layers of cimolite, which in some places forms the transition to a true mountain cork. Sometimes it is found on round masses of Alint, sometimes fossil shells are found in it, and pectinites which are wholly black and changed into flint. This substance contains, according to the analyses of Messrs. Helm and Muller, lime, alumine, and phosphorick acid. It forms, therefore, a new species adjoining the Apatite, and it has been designated by the name of Ratofkite, from the place where M. Fischer resides.

P

Mr. Davy's experiments.-M. Jacquin in a letter to M. Fischer informs him, that in concert with his friends the director Schreibers, colonel Tihursky, and M. Bremser, he repeated the recent experiments of Mr. Davy with success. They generally made use of a battery with vertical piles composed of 1300 pairs of disks, which where generally three inches in diameter, and formed together 70 square feet of surface in contact the experiment succeeded however with 300 pairs of disks, and it was even perceptible with 70 pairs. One of the processes adopted by the above gentlemen seems to be somewhat novel they placed in a wine glass a small piece of alkali moistened in the air, on a small plate of platina which communicates with the hydrogen pole, and which was entirely covered with rectified petroleum. Finally, they placed on the alkali a thin plate of platina, and pressed it with a metallick rod com

--

municating with the oxygen pole. The effects being remarked, bubbles of air were extricated as in the first experiment; sometimes there were trifling detonations; and some time afterwards they found the whole of the inferiour surface of the alkali strewed with small scales having a metallick appearance like those which are seen floating in the petroleum. This preparation is very beautiful, particularly when placed in the microscope. It is not combined easily with mercury; for a globule adhering to the point of the brass wire, when plunged in mercury, was not detached, and afterwards detonated in water as before.

In the experiment last described, the place of the platina. may be supplied by a flat piece of charcoal. The diamond and sulphur are not conductors of the electrick fluid, and produce no effect. The experiment does not succeed better in vacuo than in the open air. "What is this substance (M. Fischer asks) which resembles a metal? Is it the alkali reduced, or one of its constituent parts, which being combined with oxygen represents it, as Mr. Davy seems to think? or, Is it hydruret of potash? But whence this metallick appearance ?"

From the London Medical and Physical Journal.

During last winter, a phenomenon, which would appear incredible, were it not attested by a great number of persons of known veracity, occurred in the vicinity of Placentia. On the 17th of January, red snow fell upon the mountains in this department, and especially upon that known by the name of Cento-croci. A coat of white snow had covered the tops of these mountains, when several peals of thunder, accompanied with lightning, were heard. From this moment, the snow that fell was red; this continued for some time, after which white snow again fell, so that the red was inclosed between two strata of white. In some places, this snow was only of the colour of peach-blossom, but in others of deep red. Some of it was collected, and the water which it yielded, when melted, retained the same colour. The analysis of it by M. Guigotti, a chemist of Parma, promises interesting results. This phenomenon seems to furnish us with the means of explaining the showers of blood, which are mentioned by the ancients in their

histories. We have already ascertained the existence of pesinites, or stones fallen from the atmosphere, which the Greeks and Latins have spoken of; and now it is impossible to deny the reality of showers of a blood-red colour, which are described by the same authors.

Accounts from Santa Fé, in New Grenada, dated August 19, 1809, mention the death of the celebrated MUTIS, the friend of Linnaeus, and one of the greatest botanists of the age. This venerable and worthy man had devoted upwards of fifty years to the examination of the vegetable productions of America. Attached at first as physician to the viceroy, the count of Casa Flores, he began at his own expense to have drawings, made by native painters, formed by himself, for the Flora of Bagota. This grand work will he continued, and is greatly extended since he was appointed director of the botanical expedition of New Grenada. He had collected in his house con. siderable herbaries, more than 1500 coloured drawings of new plants, philosophical and astronomical instruments, and a collection of botanical works, inferiour only to that of the illustrious President of the Royal Society of London.

Mr. Rea, one of Mutis's pupils, is the present director of the botanical garden of Madrid. His nephew, Don Sinforosa Mutis, has been commissioned by the government to complete the Flora of Bagota, for which no more than 566 descriptions of new species have been found drawn up by the deceased. Messrs. Mutis and Rixa, two distinguished artists, natives of Santa Fé, are finishing the numerous drawings that were begun. M. Mutis, who in his old age had embraced the ecclesiastical profession, was equally distinguished for the variety and solidity of his attainments, and for the liberality and elevation of his sentiments. Previous to his death, he directed that his library, collections, and instruments, should be applied to the publick use of his fellow-citizens.-Europe is indebted to him for the important discovery of the quinquina of New Grenada. The orange-coloured quinquina, of Santa Fé (cinchona lancifolia) which is not inferiour in quality to the bark of Loxa, (cinchona condaminea) has become an important branch of commerce, at the ports of Carthagena, and Santa Martha.

CATALOGUE,

OF NEW PUBLICATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.

FOR APRIL, 1811.

Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura. Mart.

NEW WORKS.

* The resources of the British Empire, together with a view of the probable result of the present contest between Britain and France. By John Bristed. New-York; Ezra Sargent. 8vo.

* Memoirs of the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, D D Founder and President of Dartmouth College and More's Charity School; with a summary History of the College and School. To which are added, copious extracts from Dr. Wheelock's correspondence. By David M'Clure, D. D. S. H. S. pastor of a church in East Windsor, Con. and Elijah Parish, D. D pastor of the church in Byfield, Mass. Newburyport: C. Norris. 8vo.

*An Enquiry concerning the intellectual and moral faculties, and literature of Negroes; followed with an account of the life and works of fifteen Negroes and Mulattoes, distinguished in science, literature and the arts. By H Gregoire, formerly Bishop of Blois, member of the Conservative Senate, and of the National Institute, of the Royal Society of Gortinguen, &c. &c. translated by D. B. Warden, secretary to the American legation at Paris. Brooklyn; Thomas Kirk.

Beauties of Dr. Robertson, containing the most prominent and interesting passages in the works of that illustrious historian; being the lives and characters of the principal personages, together with the most memorable events, delineated by him in his histories of Scotland and Charles V. and of America. To which is prefixed, an account of the life and writings of the author. New York; Ezra Sargent. Price $1 25. 12mo.

* A Sermon preached before the Plymouth Association of Ministers, in the third congregational society in Middleborough, Sept. 26, 1810. By John Reed, D D. pastor of the first church and congregational society in Bridgewater. Boston; Greenough and Stebbins.

A Discourse, on Church Musick, delivered in Brighton, March 29th, 1811. By John Foster, A. M. Minister of the society in that town. Brighton; D. Bowen. pp. 18.

A Dissertation on the Prophecies relative to Antichrist and the Last Times; exhibiting the rise, character, and overthrow of that terrible Power and a Treatise on the seven Apocalyptick Vials. By Ethan Smith, Pastor of the Church in Hopkinton, N. H. Charleston, S C.; E. Morford, Willington and Co.

Hymns for Infant Minds; by the author of Original Poems for Infant Minds, Rhymes for the Memory, &c. Boston; Munroe and Frances.

NEW EDITIONS.

* Memoir on the expediency of an Ecclesiastical Establishment for British India; both as the means of perpetuating the christian religion among our own countrymen; and as a foundation for the ultimate civilization of the natives. By Rev. Claudius Buchanan, M. D. First American edition. Cambridge; Hilliard and Metcalf.

The third edition of the Practical Navigator, being an Epitome of Navigation containing all the tables necessary to be used with the Nautical

* Such books, pamphlets, etc. as are designated by this mark (*) may be found at the Boston Athenaeum.

Almanack in determining the Latitude and Longitude by lunar observations, and keeping complete reckoning at sea, illustrated by proper rules and examples, the whole examplified in a journal kept from Boston to Madeira, in which all the rules of Navigation are introduced. Also, the demonstration of the usual rules of Trigonometry, Problems in Mensuration, Surveying and Gauging Dictionary of Sea Terms, and the manner of performing the most useful Evolutions at sea. With an Appendix, containing Methods of calculating Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, and Occultations of the Fixed Stars; and Rules for finding the Longitude of a place by observations of eclipses or occultations. Price $4.

Nuptial Dialogues and Debates, or an useful prospect of the felicities and discomfitures of a married life. By Edward Ward. The first American, from the fifth London edition, corrected. New York; Samuel For-. ster.

A Practical Inquiry into disordered Respiration; distinguishing the species of convulsive asthma, their causes and indications of cure. By Robert Bree, M. D. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. From the fourth London edition, with additional practical observations. New York; E. Sargent. Price $2.

Anne of Brittany; an historical Romance. 3 vols. in one. New York; Butler and White.

Price $I.

The Sequel to the Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World; being testimonies in behalf of Christian candour and unanimity, by Divines of the Church of England, the Kirk of Scotland, and among the Protestant Dissenters. To which is prefixed, an Essay on the right of private judgment in matters of Religion. By John Evans, A. M. master of a Seminary for a limited number of Pupils, Pulling's Row, Islington. First American edition. Boston; John Eliot, jr.

The Four Gospels, translated from the Greek, with Preliminary Dissertations, and Notes Critical and Explanatory. By George Campbell, D.D. F. R. S. Edinburgh. Four volumes, with the author's last corrections. Boston; W. Wells and T. B. Wait and Co. The first and second vols. are completed, and the third and fourth vols. will be published in a few weeks.

WORKS PROPOSED AND IN PRESS.

Edward Parker and Joseph Delaplaine, booksellers, Philadelphia, propose publishing by subscription, an American edition of the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, now printing in Edinburgh; conducted by David Brewster, L. L. D. Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, with assistance of nearly one hundred gentlemen of the first eminence in science and literature in Europe.

T. B. Wait and Co. propose publishing by subscription, A Geographical and Historical View of the World: exhibiting a complete delineation of the natural and artificial features of each country; and a succinct narrative of the origin of the different nations, their political revolutions, and progress in arts, sciences, literature, commerce, &c. The whole comprising all that is important in the geography of the globe and the history of mankind. By John Bigland, author of Letters on Ancient and Modern History, Essays on various subjects, &c. &c. in five volumes.