rays into all the colours of the rainbow, and hanging like gems on the leaves of the plants around you; and you may have thoughtlessly fancied them to be dew-drops; these, however, are the effects of the transpiration from the leaves. But the water transpired must bear a certain proportion in quantity to that which is absorbed by the roots, or the plant loses its freshness and its vigour; it languishes and fades. Generally speaking, about a third is retained, to be

decomposed, resolved into its elements, and to assist in nourishing, providing for the necessary waste, and contributing to the growth of the individual; whilst two-thirds must be exhaled. Hence it is, that if plants be exposed to the almost uninterrupted heat of a summer sun, they fade, sicken, and not unoften die; not because they are deficient in moisture, but because the quantity of fluids transpired is not in due proportion to that which is absorbed by the roots."

1,250,000 3,200,000

1,200,000

1,200,000

2,100,000

47,000

18,000

....

Premium by the Highland Society of London. It will be gratifying to the students of Gaelic Antiquities to learn that the Highland Society of London with its wonted liberality has, at a recent General Meeting, resolved to offer one hundred Guineas Premium for the best History of the Highland Clans, their nature, origin, services, and moral effect in their respective districts. In addition to this munificent encouragement to undertake a work that cannot be considered otherwise than national, every facility in the power of the Society to procure information will be afforded to the competitors on their addressing John Macdonald, Esq. the Secretary, No. 16, George Street, Mansion House, London.

The works to be considered and prize awarded at the first meeting of the Society after the 21st of March 1834. Each work to be accompanied by a sealed note bearing a corresponding motto on the outside with that on the envelope of the work itself, and containing the author's name, which note will only be opened in the event of the Premium being awarded to the writer.

The liberality of the Society in this affair deserves great commendation, as it is supposed that all the competitors have probably more or less already paid some attention to the subject, for although it is interesting to the whole country, it is yet, from the language and the materials with which the inquiries must be conducted, one of those

far perished that they could be no of use to any future navigator, and in consequence, Captain King had copies made on vellum, and deposited these with the coin in the same place on the summit of the mountain, rendering their situation as conspicuous as possible, by a huge pile of stones. In addition to the accounts of Bougainville's and Cordova's voyages, he also left one of the Adventure and Beagle, and the original documents have been lately deposited, by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, in the British Museum.

General Prieto.

General Santa Cruz.

Buenos Ayres General Rosas.
Hayti.

General Boyer.

Bustamenta and Obando are Vice-Presidents acting as Presidents. Rosas has tendered his resignation, but being still in power at the date of the last accounts, and it being uncertain whether his resignation will be accepted, we have put him down accordingly.

Gold-washing-According to the investigations of a German naturalist, the River Eider, which traverses part of the dominions of Hesse Darmstadt, Hesse Cassel, and Waldeck, contains as much gold as any of the rivers of Brazil. A company, on a large scale, is now forming, to benefit by this discovery.

Excavations in Rome.-In prosecuting the excavations undertaken in the Forum at the public expense, there was lately found a triangular pedestal near Phocas' column, which is conjectured to have formed the foot of a candelabrum; it is in marble, and of considerable size, and is ornamented with several beautiful bas-reliefs in good preservation, representing Bacchantes dancing, on the model of the splendid danc

Prussia

Great Britain Austria

1879

1876

By this table we are made acquainted with the extraordinary fact that Prussia will double her population, barring such accidents as human nature may have to encounter, in thirty-one years, whilst her petty neighbours must look on, without a remedy, for another eighty-five years before their numbers experience a similar increase. The disparity between England and France is no less marvellous: by the time when the latter shall have doubled her human resources, ours, by Moreau's showing, will have risen to upwards of one hundred millions of souls; in the which event the inhabitants of the British Isles will outnumber those of Gaul one moiety and more.

American Plan of Potatoe Planting. Mr. Robert Sainsbury, of West Lavington, Wilts, adopted last year the following mode of planting potatoes (common in America), and that the produce of three sets was three score and sixteen potatoes, the greater part of a large size! Dig holes three feet distant, put the usual quantity of dung at the bottom of the holes; put in each hole three or four sets, and if it should be a dry summer, the roots will have the advantage of moisture; while they are growing, frequently mould them up well, as there will be sufficient room. The fault of the English in general is, that they diminish the produce of their potatoes by planting them too thick."

The rampion, a variety of the Campanula, was formerly cultivated for the sake

of its roots, to be eaten the same as radishes are now; but being much inferior to this root, it has been generally expelled from our gardens: but although eaten as radishes, it is not equal to them; the roots when peeled and eaten as nuts, will be found a most excellent substitute for them in the dessert. The green also makes an excellent sallad; and when boiled and treated like spinage, it is much superior to that vegetable, and as the plant is sufficiently hardy to endure the severest winter, and to continue fresh during this season, it furnishes a luxury for the table when lettuces and spinage are not to be had. It should be sown in April or beginning of May.

The old Hautboy Strawberry, is with many considered to be far superior in flavour

to all others; but it is not much grown, because it is thought to be a bad bearer; whereas the fact is there is no kind of strawberry more prolific. In every bed of this strawberry, treated in the usual manner, there are found ten barren or blind plants for one that is fruitful; and as it is considered by some that those barren or blind plants bear the male blossoms, and consequently are necessary to enable the bearing plants to mature their fruits; and by others, that those plants which are barren one year, are prolific the next; both the barren and the prolific plants are suffered to grow together; but the fact is, the barren and prolific plants form two distinct varieties; the prolific plant possesses the functions requisite, within itself, to perfect its fruit, and the barren plant is never prolific. The reason why the barren plant is always more numerous than the prolific plant, is, that it throws out the soil, to the exclusion of the prolific its suckers earlier, and takes possession of ones. To obtain a bed of the prolific plants, then, it is necessary to exterminate the barlecting them is when the plants are in bloom, ren or blind plants; and the season for sethe difference in the blossoms is sufficiently great to enable any person to see it. In the prolific blossom, the embryo fruit stands prominently forward, and the anthers which surround it are borne on stamens so short, as on a superficial view scarcely to be seen; whilst on the barren plant the embryo fruit is very small, and the stamens are so long as to spread the anthers over the fruit so much, as almost to cover it from the sight.

"

At a Meeting of the Albany Institute, held Jan. 26th, Richard Varick De Witt, Esq. communicated a paper on the means of preventing the explosion of steam boilers." He recommends, says the Albany Daily Advertiser," what he terms a hydrostatic safety pipe, being a tube of a diameter proportional to the size of the boiler, and extending from a few inches below the surface of the water to a height of two feet to every pound of steam pressure that may be required. For instance, if the usual pressure at which an engine is worked be fifteen pounds, the pipe would be thirty feet high; as soon as the steam acquires this force, the pipe would necessarily be filled with water, and any increase would drive the water out of it, until its lower orifice was uncovered, when it would afford a

ARTS.

ready passage to the steam; it would also give immediate notice, if, from neglect or otherwise, the water should happen to get below the point at which it ought to be kept. He remarked, that his plan is not liable to any of the objections to which other means for the purpose were. A safety valve might be overloaded by accident or intentionally; if it were under lock and key, it might become fixed in its place by rust; fusible plugs might not melt soon enough: but no possible danger could arise when the plan he suggested was adopted, except through wantonness in closing the pipe. A drawing was exhibited of the apparatus as applied to a boiler.

Caoutchouc, or what has been commonly called India-rubber, which has for some

time past been manufactured into various useful articles of wearing-apparel, impervious to wet, &c. is the subject of an article in a recent number of the "Journal des Connaissances Usuelles et Pratiques," in which it is observed that the caoutchouc is formed from the juice of two plants growing in the Indies, namely, the Jaliopha Elastica, and the Ecvea Caoutchou, which the natives by means of moulds form into various shapes, and especially make of it a species of bottles, on which various designs are executed. To dry it, they expose it to the flame of resinous wood, the black smoke of which gives it the dark colour which is generally observed in it. M. de Humboldt brought to Europe some of the juice of the Ecvea Caoutchou, from which white caoutchou was produced, as it would all be, were it not for the process already mentioned. It appears, however, that the mode of manufacturing it in England, of an apparently uniform consistency, has not been hitherto discovered in France, where in the attempts made for similar purposes, it was found that the places of junction of the different pieces of caout chouc were discoverable in the manufactured article, whilst, as already observed, the articles made in England presented an uniform texture, and the points of juncture were not discernible. But it is now thought that the secret has been discovered, and that by carrying on the whole process under water, of separating the lamina of caoutchouc (which the French writer compares, as to its mass, with Gruyere cheese), the object may be achieved of obtaining lamina or strips, which may be joined together in the manufacturing of various articles without the points of juncture being discernible. And it is stated that strips thus obtained become so solid at the point of junction, that they could be more easily torn or fractured at any other part than that. Tubes have been thus prepared which, from their imperviability and the facility of employing them, have been found of the greatest service in chemistry; and the mode above referred to is stated to have proved of the greatest use in preventing the inequality of thickness which had hitherto prevailed in these articles; but a great desire is expressed to have the large pieces of caoutchouc, which, it appears, are to be had in England, but which have not hitherto found their way as an article of commerce to

France. By means of caoutchouc, it is stated, small balloons may be formed, capable of rising in the atmosphere when filled with hydrogen gas, or even some of large dimension. By dissolving the caoutchouc, and impregnating with it other materials, articles of various substance may be obtain, ed, which are completely imperviable or water-proof, at least for a considerable period, it being admitted (as must, indeed, of course follow) that, after a certain time, an alteration takes place in its qualities. The caoutchouc is usually softened in boiling water or steam before dissolving it, but it may be dissolved without that previous preparation.

The "Sheffield Iris" states that a great improvement in the steam-engine has been recently made by Mr. George Rennoldson, of South Shields. This engine has three cylinders from one boiler, with the connecting rods on a triangular crank, so that while one piston is moving upwards another is going down, and another passing the centre, the pistons following each other in a regular division of time, and completely balancing each other as far as weight and pressure are concerned, the slides of course moving upon a smaller triangular crank. This engine has nearly as complete an equability and uniformity of motion as it is possible to procure from a rotatory engine. The necessity of a fly-wheel is altogether superseded. It is so steady in its motion, indeed, as hardly to affect the frame in which it stands, and makes so little noise that it would scarcely be known to be at work, were it not seen to be so. Such an engine must necessarily be of great use in steam-boats, in cotton-factories, and in those manufactories at Birmingham and Sheffield where fine metalwork is wrought. An engine of this description will go in less bounds than those of the ordinary construction. A space of five feet four inches by seven feet nine inches will hold one from fifteen to fifty-horse power; and engines of twenty-horse power on this plan may be set within a frame five feet square. The present is a high-pressure engine, but a very slight alteration would give it the condensing principle. From the great power it possesses, however, at comparatively a very light pressure of steam, it appears to be quite as secure as any condensing engine could be made.