elasticity, affording the most refreshing and easy repose, either in this or even in the warmest climates; that they may, when required, be changed from the greatest degree of softness to the hardness of a mattress, by moving the handle of the air-pump, which is placed commodiously within reach; or may be rendered soft to any required degree, by the exhausting pump, also within reach.

"In addition to these conveniences, they may at any time be rendered perfectly fresh and cool, by merely changing the air, by the alternate use of the air-pumps; this may be effected in a few minutes, without the person sleeping on the beds being moved; hence their great advantage to invalids, and their generally refreshing and salubrious effects.

"Such machinery may at first sight appear too philosophical for common use, and too cumbrous for a sleeping-apartment: but as to the first point, only a very small portion of ingenuity is required to become conversant with their application; and as to the second, it is merely necessary to say, that the air pumps, together with all the machinery for filling and exhausting the beds, being inclosed under the bedsteads, and communicating with cords and tassels (resembling bell-pulls) saspended immediately above the pillows, any alteration in the state or temperature of the beds is thus easily effected at any time required.

The fact is, that they save much manual labour, as they require no making up; for by their elasticity they rise immediately when left, and are then in the state of other beds after being shaken and made up, the counterpane, &c. being returned as usual: hence they occasion no dust or film in the rooms, or on the furniture, which is always the case where feather or down beds are used.

"For medical purposes also they may be filled with air at any required temperature; or with water, steam, or other fluids, wet or dry,

elastic or non-elastic, to which the case is equally impermeable. In addition to which, they have several other advantages. They are not subject to be sloping on one side, nor to those hard clumps or knots which feathers or down gradually acquire in the course of a few years.

"They are likewise extremely light, the largest weighing only a few ounces, and portable also, being easily folded or rolled, after being previously exhausted."

THE ALCHYMISTS' LAN-
GUAGE.

We have already given a little history of an Alchymist, and one of their tricks: the following may serve as a specimen of their Language:-Basil Valentine, of Erfurt in Germany, was one of the most celebrated of them, and was one of the first of those who introduced metallic preparations into medicine. He was of course an opponent of the physicians of the school of Galen, who were attached to the use of inert and simple medicines. In his book called the "Chariot of Antimony," he thus addresses his opponents:- "Ye wretched and pitiful medicasters, who, full of deceit, breathe I know not what Thrasonick brags; infamous men, more mad than Bacchanalian who will neither learn now TULE dirty your hands with coals; you titular doctors, who write long scrolls of receipts; you apothecaries, who with your decoctions fill less than those in princes' courts, in which meat is boiled for the sustenance of some hundreds of men; you, I say, who have hitherto been blind, suffer a collyrium to be poured into your eyes, and permit me to anoint them with balsam, that this ignorance may fall from your sight, and that you may behold truth as in a clear glass." But though Valentine was such an enemy to simples, his own powerful medicines did not always succeed. It is said, that having thrown some antimony to the hogs, it purged them heartily, and that afterwards they grew very fat.

pots

no

the lightning set fire to a windmill, situated near Greifswalde, and damaged several of the arms of the mill. The miller, on going to repair his mill, found in the axletree an aperture in which he discovered 280 black balls, all of the same size: some which were found under similar circumstances, near Thoren, were considerably larger."This letter was accompanied by one whole ball and a half one. The half ball was given to the writer of this notice for examination. It had the shape of an elliptical spheroid, the large axis of which is 18, and the small axis 17 parallel lines. Their substance is of a dark grey colour, and not porous, of a brittle texture, and containing small, hardly perceptible particles of wood. On the surface, it

peared flaky. In a chemical

of view, it appeared partly like brown coal, partly like burnt wood;

for with a still more

easily with

of potash in water, it may be dissolved into a dark brown fluid, with the exception of the particles of wood; and when exposed to a current of air, and sufficiently heated, burned at first with a flame, and afterwards glowing, by which process the usual products of burnt wood, namely, carbonic acid, water, and an alkaline ash were formed. The substance of these balls, therefore, is nothing but the wood of the axletree in in which they were found, crushed, half burnt to cinders, and at last into

red hot; on being withdrawn from the fire, a rod of sulphur, seven lines in diameter, was applied to its surface; in fourteen seconds the sulphur made a hole, perfectly circular, quite through the iron. Another bar of iron, two inches two lines in thickness, was pierced in fifteen seconds. The holes in both were precisely of the form of the sulphur employed, but rather more regular on the side whence the sulphur issued than where it entered, the hole being here a little jagged. Steel in bars, made of old files, was pierced even quicker than the iron, and the holes were equally regular. Grey cast-iron, heated almost to melting, was not altered by the application of the sulphur to its surface, and was not even marked. I took a portion of this iron, shaped in the form of a crucible, and I put in it sulphur and iron; on applying heat to it the forged iron and sulphur speedily melted, but the grey cast-iron suffered no alteration.

UNIVERSAL CEMENT.

A CEMENT made in the following manner, will unite, it is said, either glass or porcelain, and either marble or metals:

balls

form which they all had is undoubtedly the remarkable circumstance of the whole event, and deserves the attention of natural philosophers.

Wexperien

ment is in a letter from a Colonel Evain to M. Gay Lussac, and published in the Annales de Chim, et Phy. for J24:- I caused," he says, a of forged iron, 18 lines thick, to be heated

"To an ounce of mastic add as much highly rectified spirits of wine as will dissolve it. Soak an ounce of isinglass in water until quite soft, then dissolve it in pure rum or brandy, until it forms a strong glue, to which add about a quarter of an ounce of gum ammoniac, well rub- v and mixed. Put the two mixtures together in an earthen vessel over a gentle heat; when well united, the mixture may be put into t a phial and kept well stopped. zusmin “When wanted for use, the bot, ut must be set warm water, the china o glass articles as must be also warmed, and the cement applied. It will be proper te that the broken surfaces, when careta fully fitted, shall be kept in close contact for twelve hours at least,od until the cement is fully set; after which, the fracture will be found as secure as any part of the vesseland and scarcely perceptible.it

tle

VITREOUS SAND TUBES.POWER OF LIGHTNING, IN 1812, E. L. Irton, Esq. of Irton Hall, Cumberland, transmitted to the Geological Society specimens and descriptions of some tubes found in the sand near Drigg, in Cumberland. Three were found, and the diameter of each was about an inch and a half. The spot was afterwards examined, and the substances subjected to a c a chemical examination, by some of the members of the Geological Society.

ter through the sand, which it melted or fused in its passage into the earth. These tubes were found to descend about thirty feet through the sand. The outside of the tube was coated with an agglutinated sand, which, when viewed with a lens, was found to consist of black and white grains mixed together, rounded by fusion. The sides of the tube were about the twentieth part of an inch thick, very hard and rigid, and the outside interrupted by deep furrows,

ments, it resulted, that these had been formed by the passage of the lightning or electric mat

ent, the one spot in its de

scent, electric fluid had met with a bed of pebbles of the size of

kidney beans; had dispersed and spread its fusing power, so as to form, not a tube, but a mass. (Fig. 3.) In one place, about three feet under the surface, it had made an attempt to pass between two large pebbles, which flattened and lessened the tube; and immediately below this it became crooked and contorted, as in Fig. 2. The following accounts of some similar discoveries were published in the Annalen der Physik for June and July 1823:-"I was," says Dr. Charles Gustavus Fiedler, "in Stampfen, on the borders of Hungary; and having procured the assistance of some of the inhabitants who could speak German, I set out, examining the neighbourhood in search of a vitreous-sand, or lightning-tube. After much trouble, I at length found one, and the first which has been discovered in the dominions of the Emperor of Austria. The place where it was found was the highest point of a low sand-hill, about half a league from Zankendorf, near Malaczka, in a northerly direction. The upper part of the tube was nearly half an inch in diameter, from which I concluded it would sink very deep. After we had dug down about two yards, we came to a layer of pebbles, and then to a layer of clay, below which I was sure the electric fluid would not have penetrated. At first it had taken a slanting, and afterwards a perpendicular direction. Six inches below the surface, a small branch, four inches and a half long, (see Fig. 1.) went off from the main tube; and at the depth of thirty-two inches the tube divided itself into two branches. These branches terminated on the clay, one being seven inches and a half long, and the other nine, owing to the surface of the clay not being even. Below the tubes the traces of electricity, scattered over the clay, were visible, and it appeared as if it had been exposed to the action of fire. Immediately below, where the tube split into two branches, a large pebble was found, which was, probably, the cause of the division."

In the July Number of the

Annalen, a Mr. Hagen, Professor of Chemistry at Konigsberg, gives an account of some peasants observing the lightning to enter the earth, on July the 17th, near the village of Rauschen, on the borders of the Baltic. They found two holes close to a high tree, where they saw the electric fluid descend, and the earth was hot all round the spot. On a closer examination, about a foot below the surface, immediately under one of the holes, a tube was formed, and parts of it found. It was, however, very thin, giving reason to believe, that the stream of electricity was not, in this instance, so great as in some of the others; and the outside was covered with black dust, which in its properties resembled charcoal.

This latter account is of considerable importance, as confirming the conjecture that these tubes were caused by lightning. Hitherto this was only conjecture; but we may now set it down as fully ascertained. We may remark, in closing this Article, that this fact furnishes another proof of the great benefits which may be expected to result from imitating, by art, the processes of nature, whether the object to be accomplished is to add to the mechanical power, or to the chemical knowledge of man. In this case we have an example of the instant passage of electricity fusing one of the most infusible of substances: thus we are taught, that electricity may be used as a pow erful instrument of chemical analysis; and we know that, following up this instruction, the galvanic battery has already been applied to extort several secrets from Nature.

CHEMISTRY AS A SCIENCE. Art. III.

OXYGEN.

OXYGEN, properly speaking, is the name given by Chemists to the base of oxygen gas; but all attempts hitherto made to procure this base, or to reduce oxygen gas even to a liquid state, have been wholly fruitless, and therefore it