remains; but it does not act as usual, because the stimulus of digested food is wanting; or it acts so as to throw the food out of the stomach the wrong way, in consequence of the unnatural stimulus of undigested food. On Thursday, the 8th of February, Dr. Wilson Philips' paper was concluded. He showed that the heat of animals was in all probability owing to the nervous energy. He finished his paper with a general view of the facts which he had established in the three papers which he had laid before the Royal Society. The muscular energy depends upon the particular structure of the muscles; the nervous system is supported by the sanguiferous; but the sanguiferous can act without the influence of the nervous system. Secretion and animal heat are entirely dependent upon the nervous system. Hence the muscles cannot for any length of time continue to exert their energy if the nervous influence be cut off. The nervous influence appears the same with the galvanic energy. On an objection being made, that these experiments ought to have been repeated on other animals besides rabbits, Dr. W. Philips repeated them on dogs, with the same results. The experiments of Dr. Wells, Berzelius, and Mr. Brande, tending to show that the colouring matter of the blood is not iron, or any combination of iron, but animal matter, have been lately confirmed by the analysis of Vauquelin, to which, for want of room, I am obliged to refer in Dr. Thomson's Annals of Philosophy for September, 1816. Mr. Rose has discovered that the urine in hepatitis contains no urea: hence it has been supposed, (I think prematurely,) that the only use of the liver is, to separate urea from the blood. But the phenomena of the gallstone, tend to support this opinion of Dr. Thomson. In Annals of Philosophy for April, 1816, is a statement of several facts by Dr. Balfour, Mr. W. H. Bailey, M. Percy, and M. Jos. Baronio, on the reunion of parts separated from the living/ body, which appear to be incontrovertible. In the No. 2, and No. 3, of Brande's Journal, are two papers by Dr. Parke on the laws of sensation, which have great merit for the condensation of known facts, and the expression of known laws of the animal economy, though he is greatly indebted throughout, to Bichat's views of the same pheno mena. From the days of Aristotle to Locke and his followers inclusively, the motto has been, Nil unquam fuit in intellectu, quod non prius erat in sensu. However this may be, we must resort to physiology to account for sensation. According to Dr. Parke, sensations arise either from the impressions of external objects on our organs of sense, or from unusual states of the internal viscera, and organs of animal function. These sensations are modified either, 1st. By the object making the impression; or, 2d, By the state of the organ impressed; or, 3d, By the state of the sensorium; or, 4th, The general state of the system; but in all cases subject to regular laws, which govern the objects and the impressions. Sensations therefore, according to Dr. Parke, have been improperly confined to the impressions of external objects; wherein he is doubtless right. He considers mechanical distention as the only natural and habitual stimulus to muscular structure, and as the immediate cause of muscular action. Dr. J. Want has introduced Briony root as a remedy in dropsy, gout, and rheumatism. Four ounces sliced and infused in 8 ounces of white wine; the infusion to be taken at twice in two days. Sir Everard Home ascribes the action of specific medicines to their being received into the circulation. The eau medicinale D'Husson, which was at first supposed to be white hellebore, he considers as a vinous infusion of the roots of the colchicum autumnale or meadow saffron. Dr. J. Want thinks, it is a spirituous tincture of the roots of that plant, whereof he prescribes two ounces cut into small pieces, to be digest ed in four ounces of alcohol. I believe the usual dose is from 70 to 80 drops. It (that is, the medicine imported and sold under the name of Husson's gout-drop, at 3 dollars for a vial full, containing 240 drops;) has been given in Philadelphia in cases of gout, and of gout complicated with dropsy, with very good effect.. stone have nearly the same sources, they are very apt to alternate, and they may be considered as varieties of the same disease, like fever and ague, and dysentery. The best prophylactic remedy I know applicable either to the one or the other, (premising moderate cathartics, with perfect abstinence from wine and acid drinks,) is, alternate doses of magnesia and Castile soap, the one on one day, and the other on the next. The soap may be taken to the amount of half an ounce in two doses. I have reason to believe, that attacks may thus be prevented which would otherwise have taken place. In the 3d No. of Brande's Journal of Science and the Arts, page 199, is the very curious case of Col. Martine, who himself filed away by a file made of a knitting needle, or a watch-spring, a stone in his bladder. dicine in amenorrhea, and to facilitate labour in pregnant women, to the amount of half an ounce aday. It is exhibited also in retention of the placenta, and in uterine hæmorrhage, as is said with good Dr. Bigelow, of Massachusetts, has published a very interesting memoir on the ergot of rye. This kind of damaged grain, (spurred rye,) has usually been supposed to produce (and probably when used as an article of food, does produce) the dry gangrene: in MassachuMr. Brande having recommend-setts, the ergot is exhibited as a meed (very properly) magnesia as a remedy in nephritic complaints, has published a paper on the ill effects produced by the inordinate use of it. It appears, that, when taken where the symptoms do not require it, and persisted in, accumulations of sandy matter, consisting chiefly of magnesia, are apt to take place in the bowels. This may be so occasionally, but I have seen magnesia long persisted in, when no indications called for it, without any bad effect: an acid diet for a few days, I should presume, would prove a remedy for the excess. The gout and the effect. Electricity has been found use. ful in a case of aphonia. In a paper of Dr. Scott's, on the Arts of India, are some suggestions of the probable virtues of | chlorine as a medicine; I take this opportunity of suggesting also, whether it might not be a very useful gargle, used in a weak state, (combined with water,) in cases of carious teeth, and ulcerated sore throat, and as an application to ill conditioned ulcers? its anti-contagious qualities would naturally lead to this employment of it. ELECTRICITY. There are three theories afloat to account for electrical facts: 1st, Franklin's; one fluid, which may exist either in its natural quantity, in less than its natural quantity, or in more than its natural quantity; electric phenomena depending on the efforts of the fluid, or the substances that have an affinity for it, to regain its natural equilibrium when disturbed. 2. Du Fry's, Symmers; two fluids, vitreous and resinous; the one producing the effects ascribed to positive or surplus electricity, the other to nega. Men of science are yet in doubt, whether the galvanic and the electrie fluid are identical: the different processes for obtaining and exhibiting these fluids, (if indeed they be distinct) the different sensations they produce, the different effects they have upon natural bodies, the passage of the electric shock through a circle of persons, however extended, without sensitive or deficient electricity: this is ble diminution; while the galvanic effect is hardly felt in the midst of a circle of a dozen persons, these, and some other distinctive marks that might be enumerated, have excited doubts as to the identity of electricity and galvanism. The following curious experiment of Confiliachi, tends to prove that they are the same fluid. Surround, says he, an active galvanic pile with moist leather, or some such covering, so as to create a resemblance to the organs of a torpedo inclosed in his skin: let the pile be interrupted in some part of it, or divide it into two columns placed near each other. Communicate a long metal wire with one, and another with the other pole of these piles, and let the distant end of each of the wires dip in water in some non-metallic vessel; these wires should be a few inches asunder in the vessel. Dip the hand in the water, and bring it in contact or very near to the wires; when a communication is made between the two columns by means of a good conductor, a shock is felt in the hand. Hence he concludes, that electricity and nearly abandoned by modern electricians. 3. Sir Humphry Davy's; that there is no specific electric fluid, any more than a specific matter of heat; but that the phenomena arise from peculiar movements in the bodies affected by what is called caloric and electricity. An opinion that does not seem well calculated to explain the phenomena in either case. It seems established that oxygen and its compounds are positively electrified: potassium, hydrogen, and combustible bodies negatively electrified. Bodies may be electrified, 1. By friction, as glass, sulphur, &c. these are bodies idio-electric. 2. By communication, as metals; an-electrics. 3. By heat, as the tourmalin; pyro-electrics. 4. By superposition, as in the pile of Volta, and that of Zamboni; sunapto-electrics. 5. Bodies positively galvanic naturally, as oxygen, the acids, &c. which are attracted by the positive wire. 6. Bodies negatively galvanic naturally, as potassium, hydrogen, &c. which pass to the negative pole. J. P. Dessaignes has published a memoir on the influence of temperature, pressure, and humidity, on electric phenomena. Jour. de Phys. May, 1816. The experiments and observations are too long for insertion or abridgment. Electricians are much occupied in accounting for the operation of the dry piles of De Luc and Zamboni, of Verona. These attempts at explanation, it is useless to detail: we want facts before the theory can be established; when Gay Lusac thought the explanation very simple, he knew nothing of the experiments of Mr. Brande. In the Annals de Chimie for May, 1816, p. 76, the priority of discovery of the dry pile instead of being given to De Luc, and Zamboni, is attributed to Messrs. Hachette and Desormes, but Brande (Journ. No. 3.) well remarks, that the report of Guyton, Lacroix, and Biot, puts an end to this pretension; "cette quantite (d'electricitè) diminue à mesure que le colle se seche" shows that this could not be considered as a dry pile, permanently electric. The reader doubtless knows that these piles are made of discs of paper, covered with Dutch foil on one side, (this metallic foil being sometimes copper, sometimes silver, zinc, or tin,) and the under side with manganese in very fine powder, made to adhere by thin glue, or gum arabic. The discs are from half an inch diameter to an inch, and in number, from 500 to 2000. They are well made by Mr. Lukens, a very ingenious mechanic of Philadelphia. When two of these piles or columns are used, a ball or a pendulum suspended between them, is alternately attracted from the one to the other, the poles at the top and bottom of the two columns being of opposite electricities. They do not seem to act in moist weather so well as in dry. The phenomena seem to me to be rather electric than galvanic, for air is more indispensable than moisture; but their theory is not yet understood. The series, is, metal, paper, manganese. The discs are pressed very close together. Zamboni, in 1812, introduced as a covering to the underside of the silvered paper, either olive oil, a dilute solution of honey in water, or a saturated solution of sulphat of zinc, and then sprinkled the powder of black manganese on the unsilvered side of the disc thus treated. Mr. Lukens says, the sulphat of zinc answers best. De Luc's construction was six hundred discs of very thin zinc, alternating with paper covered with Dutch foil, that is, copper; so that the series was zinc, copper, paper. The manganese was employed by Zamboni, in consequence of some experiments of Volta, on the great electro-motive property of this oxyd. M. Schubler says, the activity of the pile is increased by atmospheric humidity; I think I have remarked the opposite fact. But Gay Lusac considers effect of this pile as dependent on some humidity still retained in the paper, and is weak and slow in consequence of the small quantity retained. This is not inconsistent with a weak action of the pile in a humid atmosphere. the "had been hermetically confined, | "and the cessation of all electrical "phenomena, and of all oscil"lations of the pendulum after "the absorption of the oxygen. "We shall also venture to assert, "from what we have observed, "that the oscillations of the pen❝dulum are not in the least af fected by atmospherical modifi❝cations, and that, therefore, the "pile cannot be considered either 66 num as a barometrical or hygrome❝trical instrument. The oscilla❝tions in our case were twenty"two in a minute, (the columns "being placed at the distance of "six inches from each other,) and "continuing at the same "ber till the moment when they "ceased altogether, the pendulum " remaining in a perpendicular po"sition. On cautiously admitting "a fresh supply of atmospheric "air, without moving the appara"tus, the pendulum was instantly "attracted to the positive pole, " and the oscillations renewed in "the same number and progres❝sion." Journ. of Science and the Arts," No. 3. p. 101. In a paper by Mr. Alexander Walker, in the Annals of Philosophy, for Sept. 1816, a theory of electricity is proposed as depending on the decomposition of atmospheric air into oxygen and nitrogen-and of galvanism on the decomposition of water into oxygen and hydrogen. The memoir is too condensed to admit of abridgment, but it is a very plain and neat collection of the leading facts, in a short compass; and so plausi ble in its conclusions, as to deserve much consideration. MINERALOGY AND GEO LOGY. It is most unfortunate, that these branches of knowledge in proportion as they improve by the accumulation of facts, are obscured by the accumulation of names. It is literally true, that it requires more time and attention to become acquainted with the modern synonimy of mineralogy and geology, than with the substances themselves which are meant to be designated. Hauy and his followers, have done infinite mischief by the motley jargon, half Greek and half French which they have introduced without any meaning characteristic of the mineral intended. With pretensions equally well founded, may the Americans borrow from the Creeks or the Choctaws. The nation that first discovers a new country has a right to name it, and if we do not adopt chemical names expressive of the component parts of a mineral, we cannot do better than adhere to the nomenclature of Werner, who is entitled to be considered as the father of mineralogy. In this country his language will be convenient, from so large a part of our population being German. The perpetual changing of old names, amounts at present, to a most oppressive nuisance. Not content with changing the mineralogical nomenclature, the French, rejecting at first the transition rocks of Werner, have at length been compelled to admit them as intermediaires between their primitive and secondary; but they have given them new names as usual; the grau wackes are now psanimites, and the shistose rocks of primitive or transition origin, are now phullades: I suppose, as containing vegetable impressions. Primitive, transition, and secondary, are certainly appellations founded on theory, which a single shell in a granite rock would |