Descriptions Historical and Architectural, of splendid Palaces, and celebrated Buildings, English and Foreign, with Biographical notices of their Founders or Builders, and other eminent persons. This work, printed in quarto, will be comprised In six monthly parts, and embellished with highly-finished engravings by Storer, Porter, and other eminent artists. Mr. WILLIAMSON, of the Inner Temple, has a Treatise ready for publication, entitled, A Companion and Guide to the Laws of England; comprising the most useful and interesting heads of the law; viz. the whole law relating to parish matters, bilis of exchange, and promissory notes, wills, executors, landlord and tenant, trade, nuisance, master and servant, jurors, carriers, bankruptcy, apprentices, gaming, &c. &c. to which is added a sum mary of the Laws of London. An Irish gentleman of rank, who lately spent three years in London, is preparing for publication, a Series of Letters to his Father in Ireland, containing the secret history of the British Court and Metropolis, and said to illustrate, with singular ability, the state of modern manners and society. The Rev. EDWARD VALPY, author of Elegantiæ Latinæ, is preparing a new edition of that scarce and very useful work, Robertson's Phrase Book, with alterations and improvements; in which it is intended to modernise the obsolete English phrases, and to introduce, he sides known and common idioms, every word which may be susceptible of variation and elegance. Mr. W. WARD, lecturer on experirimental chemistry, has in the press, a Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy, which will speedily make its appearance, in one volume, illustrated with plates. The Rev. JOSEP: WILSON is preparing for the press, an Introduction to Butler's Analogy, in a series of Letters to a Student at the University. The Rev. GEORGE WHITTAKER, master of the grammar school in Southampton, wil. in a few days publish a work design ed for the use of junior boys in classical schools; entitled Exempla Propria, or English Sentences, translated from the best Roman writers, and adapted to the rules in syntax; to be again translated into the Latin language. The second edition of M. Gener, or a Selection of Letters, by the Rev. Jons MUCKERSY, of West Calder, is in the press, and will be published in a few days. The editor of this work intends to continue it in quarterly numbers, the first of which will appear in August next. The Peerage of Scotland, by Sir RoBERT DOUGLAS, of Glenbervie, Bart. continued to the present time, by J. P. WooD, Esq. in 2 vols. is in the press. The first edition of this work, the result of the most assiduous application for many years, and a painful enquiry into the public records and ancient chartularies, pub lished in 1764, having become extremely scarce; the editor has made every endeavour to obtain accurate information, in order to complete and correct the work to the present time. A Translation of Laborde's View of Spain, composing a descriptive itinerary, or topographical delineation of each province, and a general statistical account of the country, will shortly appear. Mr. JAMES WARDROP, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, has in the press, Observations on the Fungus Hæ matodes, or Soft Cancer. It contains the history and appearance, on dissection, of that disease, in several of the inost important organs of the body, illustrated by cases and plates. A Treatise on the Diseases and Ma nagement of Sheep, with introductory Remarks on their Anatomical Structure, and an Appendix containing Docoments, exhibiting the value of the Merino Breed, and their progress in Scotland, will soon appear frein the pen of Sir George Stew. art Mackenzie, of Coul, Bart. Sir BROOKE BOOTHBY, Bart, has in the press, the English Esop, a collection of fables, ancient and modern, in verse, translated, imitated, and original, in two post octavo volumes. The Rev. MELVILLE HORNE, Minister of Christ Church, Macclesfield, will shortly publish in a duodecimo volame, An Investigation of the Definition of Justifying Faith, the Damnatory Clause uuder which it is enforced, and the Doctrine of a direct Witness of the Spirit, held by Dr. Coɛɛ, and other methodist preachers. Mr. WALTER NICOL is preparing a work entitled, The Villa-Garden Direc tory, or Monthly Index of Work to be done in Town and Villa-Gardens, Shrubheries, and Parterres; with Hints on the Treatment of Shrubs and Flowers usually kept in the Green Room, the Lobby, and Drawing Room. Mr. ANDERSEN, author of a Tour is Zealand, is preparing for publication, a Dane's Me. A. MURRAY, Fellow of the Antiquarian Society of Edinburgh, and Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, will soon publish in quarto, Researches into the Oigue and Affinity of the Greek and Teutonic Languages, The Create of Pieral Plowman is printing in a small quarto volume, with a black letter type, the text accurately col lated with the printed copies, and occa sionally corrected by an inspection of the existing manuscript. Au historical In troduction will be prefixed, and the podin copiously illustrated with notes. At a meeting 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 Clackmansluce, from the bed of the ri, ver Forth, to the base of the Ochils, illis trated by a voluminous and very distmet plan or section of those strata, executed from actual survey and from the register of the borings mud workings or coal, in W.N. Erskine of Mar's estate in that district, communicated by Mr. ROBERT BALD, Engineer. In this first part be treated only of the alluvial stratag aud in continuing the subject he intends to lustrate it still farther by exlulating specimens of the racks themselves.-Mr. CHARLES SIĘWART laid besine the society, a list of insects found by hun in the neighbourhood of Eximburgh, with introductory remarks on the study of Entomology. It would appear that the neighbourhood of Edinburgh affords no very peculiar insects, and but few rare ones. The list contanted about four MONTHLY Mag. No. 186. hundred species, which, Mr. Stewart stated, thust be considered the most common, as they were collected in the course of two seasons only, and without very favourable opportunities. It was produced he added mercly as an incitement to younger and more zealous entomologists. Aasifbsequent meeting of this society, on the 15th of May, the second part of Mr. Bald's interesting Mineralogical Description of Clackmananshire was read, giving a particular account of two very remarkable slips or shafts in the strata, near one thousand feet in depth, and by means of which the main cual-field of the country is divided into three fields, on all of which extensive collieries have been erected.—The Rev. Mr. FLEMING, of Bressay, laid before the society, an outline of the Flora of Linlithgowshire, specitying only such plants as are omitted by Mr. Lightfoot, or are marked as uncommon by Dr. Smith. This, he stated, was to be considered as the first of a series of communications illustrative of the mas tural history of his native county.-Mr. P. WALKYR stated a curious fact in the history of the common cel. A number of cels old and young were found in a subterraneous pool, at the bottom of an old quarry, which had been filled up and its surface ploughed and cropped for more than twelve years past.-The se cretary rend a letter from the Rev. Mr. MACLEAN, of Small Isles, mentioning the appearance of a large sea-stake, between seventy and eighty feet long, among the Hebrides in June 1808. He also produ ced a list of about ane-hundred herbas. cenus plants, and two-hundred-cryptovas mia found in the King's park, Edinburgh and not enninerated in Mr. Yatden's Cae talogue of Plants, growing there; cơm municated by Mr. 6. Don, of Forker, late superintendant of the Royal Botane Garden, at Edinburgh. Scientific men have often had occasion to regret the difficulty of procuring tibres sufficiently fine and elastic for micrometers. The difficulty of ob ning sil ver wire of a durmeter small enough, induced Mr Froughton to use the spi der's web, which he has found so thie opaque, and elastic, as to answer all the purposes of practical astronomy. as it is only the stretcher, or bung line, which supports the web that possesses. these vidiable propertics, the dithculty of procaring it has compelled many op cins and practical astronomers to em play the law tles of unwrought silk, or who is still worst, the coarse biker wire Al inauufactured manufactured in this country. For these, Dr. BREWSTER has succeeded in obtain ing a substitute, in a delicate fibre which enables the observer to remove the error of inflection, while it possesses the requisite properties of opacity and elasticity. This fibre is made of glass, which is so exceedingly elastic that it may be drawn to any degree of fineness, and can always be procured and prepared with facility. This vitreous fibre, when drawn from a hollow glass tube, will also be of a tubular structure, and its interior diameter may always be regulated by that of the original tube. When the fibre is formed and stretched across the diaphragm of the eye-piece of a telescope, it will appear perfectly opaque, with a delicate fine of light extending along its axis. As this central transparency arises from the transmis sion of the incident light through the axis of the hollow tube, and this tube can be made of any calibre, the diameter of the luminous streak can be either increased or diminished. In a micrometer fitted up in this way by Dr. Brewster, the glass fibres are about Too of an inch in diameter; and the fringe of light is distinctly visible, though it does not exceed of an inch. In using these fibres for measuring the angle subtended by two luminous points, the fibres may be separated, as hitherto done, till the luminous points are in contact with the interior surfaces; but, in order to avoid the error arising from inflection, it is proposed to separate the fibres, till the rays of light issuing from the luminous points dart through the transparent axis of the fibres. The rays thus transmitted evidently suffer no inflection, in passing through the fibre to the eye; and, besides this advantage, the observer has the benefit of a delicate line, about one-third of the diameter of the fibre itself. Mr. JOSEPH HUME has discovered a new method of detecting arsenic. The test which he proposes as a substitute for those hitherto used, appears to be more efficacious, inasmuch as it produces a more copious precipitate from a given quantity of that substance. It is composed in the following manner :Let one grain of white oxide of arsenic, and the same quantity of carbonate of soda, be dissolved by boiling in ten or twelve ounces of distilled water, which ought to be done in a glass vessel; to this, let a small quantity of the nitrate of silver be added, and a bright yellow precipitate will instantly appear. This is a more decisive test than sulphate of copper, which forms Scheele's-green, (arseniate of copper) and though the process answers very well with potash or lime-water, yet Mr. Hume is inclined to prefer the common sub-carbonate of soda. A correspondent of the Philosophical Magazine, taking into consideration the present imperfect mode of finding the rates of time-keepers, suggests the establishment of a public observatory for trying time-keepers and keeping their rates, to which every maker, if he thought proper, might have access at stated hours, and where he might be allowed always to keep a certain limited number of pieces. Here, he might try the effect of improvements and gain experience; then alter and try again till he succeeded to his mind; an advantage which he could not, perhaps, enjoy in his own house, for want of instru ments of sufficient accuracy and leisure to make the necessary computations. A book containing the rate of each timekeeper might be kept always ready for the use of the owner, and, if he thought proper, for the inspection of the public, by which he would be enabled to fix a price on the machine, proportioned to the ex cellence of its going. From this place captains of ships and others might al ways be furnished with timekeepers, suitable to the price they could afford, or adapted, with respect to accuracy of going, to the purposes for which they might be required. The writer expresses his surprize that, considering the many evident advantages of such an institu tion, the watch-makers have not already established one at their own expense. That valuable plant, smyrna madder, has lately been introduced into this country by Mr. SPENCER SMITH, who furnished the Society of Arts with some seed; from which Mr. Salisbury, of the Botanic Garden, Sloane-street, has raised plants that have grown in the most promising manner. He expects to obtain seed from them, and there is every reason to hope that this useful dye-root will become naturalized in our soil. When the French siezed Liege, the gentlemen belonging to the seminary of that place were obliged to make a precipitate retreat, abandoning a large establishment, together with a valuable 5brary and a fine collection of mathematical instruments. Having since found an asylum in this country, they have formed an establishment at Stony hurst, in Lancashire, where they are making a laudable attempt to introduce the sciences, in their improved state, into their common course of education. As a first step, a handsome room for a library, and another for a mathematical apparatus have been built; to which it is intended to add a chemical laboratory as soon as possible. It is not doubted that they will soon be enabled not only to finish the erection of their building, but to procure the books and instruments necessary for the completion of their undertaking; a very liberal subscription having been procured among the friends to their establishment. FRANCE. M. VAUQUELIN has examined the root of a species of polypody, known by the appellation of calaguala. Of the substances which compose it, only those soluble in alcohol and water are capable of producing any effect on the animal economy. These are saccharine matter, mucilage, muriate of potash and resin, which last he conjectures would be found to destroy the tape-worm. He has hikewise made similar experiments on the roots of the common polypody and male fern, and obtained from them precisely similar principles and nearly in the same proportions as from the calaguala. The former roots, however, contain a small quantity of tannin. Thus the analogy of organization, which led Jussieu and Richard to conclude, that the medicinal virtues of the calaguala-root must be similar to those of other ferns, is fully confirmed by chemical analysis. The following method of making artificial stone in the vicinity of Dunkirk has been published by M. BERTRAND? — The materials employed for this purpose are the ruins of the citadel, consisting of lime, bricks, and sand. These are broken to pieces by means of a mili formed of two stone wheels following each other and drawn by a horse. Water is added, and the matter when well ground is reddish. This is put into a trough and kept soft by means of water. When the trough is full, some lime is burned and slaked by leaving it exposed to the air, and this is mixed in the proportion of one-eighth with the above cement. A woorien mould is laid on the stone, and after a thin layer of sand has been thrown on the latter to prevent the adhesion of the cement, a layer of cement is poured in, and on this a layer of bricks broken into acute-angled fragments. Thus two other strata are put in before the last which is of pure ce ment. The mould being removed, the stones thus forined are laid in heaps to dry. The line being very greedy of water, and quickly becoming solid, these stones are not long in forming a hard body fit for building. M. BRACONNOT has analysed some fossil horns of an extraordinary size found in an excavation at St. Martin, near Commercy. He supposes them to have been the horns of the great wild ox, the urus of the ancients, and aurochs of the Germans. From one hundred parts he obtained phosphate of lime, composed of Lime Phosphoric Acid Water 41 28.3 69.9 11. the ore with sulphuric acid. The volatile metallic acid combines with a weak -solution of potash put into the receiver, ad tinges it crimson. From this red liquor, gallic acid, or infusion of galis, throws down a cheshut-brown precipitate. Prussiates immediately change the red colour to a fine lemon yellow, but without any precipitation. The carbonates do not precipitate the red solution; but if it be heated with a little alcohol, the red colour changes to a green; a smell of ether is given out, and then the carbonates throw down a brown oxide, which is soluble in muriatic acid. M. KEAPROTH has discovered in mica sixteen per cent. of potash. M..Bucholz has found that the schorliform beryl of Bavaria, is a true beryl, containing 0.12 of glucine. AFRICA. The following particulars are the latest accounts- that have been received of the state of the colony of Sierra Leone:A uumber of plants received from the African institution, among which are the rine and white and red mulberries, are in a flourishing condition. The principal danger seems to be of their being exhausted by too rapid a growth. A piece of ground is in clearing, on the highest part of the neighbouring mountains, for the sake of trying a more temperate climate. The employment of oxen in draught has been attended, in this colony, with great success. The draught oxen have been fed on cassada, and have been found to improve under their labour, and to produce better beef than any other cattle. The bark of the mangrove, of which a specimen was lately ordered by the African Institution, has been tried in this colony, in consequence of the suggestion of the institution; and, as far as can be collected from the small scale on which the experiment has been made, it appears to answer the same purposes as oakbark in tanning. A road is in considerable forwardness towards a favour able situation on the banks of the largest stream of water known to exist within the colony, where the soil appears superior to any in the neighbourhood of the present settlement, and likely to be favourable to the growth of hemp. Carriage, roads have also been made within the town of George-town, and measures have been taken for improving the watering-place. The governor have ing resolved, that the sum of one hun dred pounds shall be appropriated to the ptering of such premiums, as shall appear to be conducive to the benefit of the colony, and of the British interests in Africa; the following are proposed:-To each of the six Kroomen, who shall first introduce their wives and families into this colony, and shall live with them in one or more distinct houses, to each family, and cultivate not less than two acres of ground for two years; five guineas. To the person, residing within the colony, who, on the 1st of January, 1811, shall extubit the best bull, his own property; five guineas. To the person, who, on the same day, shall be proved to have must effectually applied himself to the art of a saddle, collar, or harness-maker; five guineas. To the person, who, on the 1st of January, 1810, shall produce the most complete cart or waggon, hus owa manufacture, on two or more wheels, to be drawn by two or more oxen; five guineas. To the person, who, on the 1st of January, 1810, shall be proved to have most constantly and effectually employed oxen for riding, and to have broken the greatest number of oxen for the saddle; five guineas. To the person, who, on the 1st of January, 1810, shall be possessed of the greatest nonber of turkcy-hens, not less than twentyfive; five guineas. To the person, who, on the 1st of January, 1811, shall be proved to have most effectually applied" bimself to the trade of a tile-maker; five guineas. To the person, who, on the 1st of January, 1811, shall have cultıvated the greatest quantity of tobacco, not less than four acres; five guineas, To the person, who, on the 1st of Ja nuary, 1811, shall have cultivated the greatest quantity of rice, of the kind called by the natives of Africa, White Man's Rice, not less than six acres; five guineas. To the person, who, on the 1st of January, 1811, shall have culti vated the greatest quantity of graund nuts, not less than six acres; five gui eas To the person who shall first m». troduce into this colony, a living ele phant; a gold medal value ten guineas, or the same sum in money. To the person, who shall first introduce into this colony, a male and female camel, or dromedary, lit for breeding, or two pers fect young ones of the same animals, male and female; a gold medal value tea guineas, or that summan money. It will give pleasure to every liboral mind to learn that the natives of Africa ante greatly |