with figures of new or interesting fruits and flowers described therein, is published, under the direction of the council, in May and November, in Parts, forming portions of a quarto volume; these are distributed gratis to the fellows, after they have paid their first year's contribution. "Every candidate for admission into the society is to be proposed by three or more fellows, one of whom must be personally acquainted with him, or with his writings. The certificate of recommendation must specify the name, rank, and usual place of residence of the candidate, who will be ballotted for after the certificate has been read at two meetings of the society. The fee to be paid on the election and admission of a new fellow is three guineas, and the contribution to the society, in each year succeeding his election, is two guineas, provided he shall have been elected before the first of October 1818, but if after that period, it is three guineas, which charge is payable on the first of May, but may be compounded for by those Fellows elected before the first of October 1818, by the payment of twenty guineas, and by those elected after that period by the payment of thirty guineas at any one time before the contribution of the current year becomes due. "Any person exercising the trade or profession of a gardener, who shall have received a medal from the society, or shall have communicated a paper, which shall have been printed in the Transactions of the Society, may be elected, and enjoy all the privileges of a fellow, upon the payment of one guinea for his admission-fee, and of one guinea for his contribution in each year. The certificate of recommendation is in the same form, and the election is subject to the same rules as are applicable to that of the fellows." There are three other classes of members in the society not subject to payments, from whom the greatest benefit is derived to horticulture; namely, foreign members, whose number is limited to twenty, and which consists of the most distinguished horticulturalists and botanists in all parts of the world. The second class is of foreign corresponding members, consisting of persons eminent for their horticultural pursuits, resident in distant coun tries; and the third class is of corresponding members resident in Great Britain and Ireland. These two latter classes are unitmited. The society has an experimental garden at Kensington, on the south side of the road to Hammersmith, nearly opposite Hollandhouse, which is open to the fellows of the society, from two to six o'clock in each day of the week, except Sundays. The management of this garden is under the direction of a committee, nominated at the first council, after the anniversary. Fellows visiting the garden have the privilege of introducing one or more friends in their company. The increasing funds of the society have enabled it to remove to a very commodious house, in which is a spacious meeting-room, in Regent-street, near Waterloo-place, where proper officers are in daily attendance for transacting business. Having thus stated the objects of the society, and the principles upon which it is founded, we shall, in our future Numbers, record the most important matters which occur at its meetings, commencing with the notice of its proceedings from the anniversary of the society on the 1st of May last. ART. XXII. Miscellaneous Intelligence. I. MECHANICAL SCIENCE. § 1. ASTRONOMY, MECHANICS, &c. 1. Single Microscopes of Glass. - Mr. Sivright has devised a new method of making single microscopes of high magnifying powers, which is as follows: -Take a piece of platinum foil and make circular holes in it from oto of an inch in diameter, and half an inch apart, put pieces of glass into them large enough to fill the aperture. When the glass is melted by a blow-pipe, it forms a lens which adheres strongly to the metal, and is therefore set for use. An eye or loop, made of a piece of platinum wire, may also be used in place of the foil. The pieces of glass used should have no scratch of a diamond or file on them, as a mark remains after being most intensely heated. Of lenses made in this way, those larger than of an inch, were not so good as the smaller, and the best were less than 10; those which contain air-bubbles must be rejected. Mr. Sivright has also succeeded in forming plano-convex lens by fusion. A piece of glass was laid upon a plate of topaz, with a perfectly flat and polished natural surface, which is easily obtained by fracture, and the whole exposed to an intense heat. The glass fused, its upper surface became spherical from the attraction of its particles, and the lower flat and highly polished from contact with the plate of topaz.-Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. 2. New Time-keeper of M.M. Breguet.-M.M. Breguet have formed a piece of mechanism, not larger than a common watch, to be attached to telescopes, for the determination of the time in astronomical observations. This instrument enables the observer to divide seconds of time into tenths with great certainty. The instrument is adapted for the division even into hundredths, but there are few observers sufficiently expert to observe with this degree of accuracy. 3. Asbestus used in Micrometers. - Professor Wallace of the Royal Military College, Edinburgh, has ingeniously suggested the application of the capillary crystals of asbestus to the purposes of micrometrical fibres, and Mr. Troughton has successfully practised it. Fibres, about उठठ of an inch in diameter, gave a line beautifully even in the instrument, and considerably opaque. The division of the substance may be carried to any extent. §2. PNEUMATICS, AGRICULTURE, THE ARTS, &c. 4. Resistance of the Atmosphere to falling Bodies.-M. Benedict Prevost, suggests a new method of demonstrating this resistance, and its superior effect on light bodies. A piece of paper is placed flat on the bottom of a shallow cylindrical box, which is then suffered to fall from any height, the box being arranged so as to descend along the line of its axis, and with the bottom always beneath; in this case the paper will not leave the box, but falls with the same rapidity, the resistance of the atmosphere being removed from it by the box. If a small piece of paper, a bit of down, or a fragment of leaf gold, be placed flat on a large coin, and the coin be allowed to fall, so that it is always beneath, the lighter substance will descend with equal rapidity, and will afford a strong contrast to a piece suffered to float by itself in the air. 5. Velocity of Sound. From the experiments performed lately at San Jago, in Chili, by M. D. Josef de Epinosa, and D. Felipe Bauza, it appears that sound moves with a velocity of 1,227 English feet in a second, the air being at a temperature of 73°,5 Fahr. barometer 27.44 inches. 6. Spade Labour. -Mr. W. Crowther, of Somerville Aston, Gloucestershire, states in a late Number of the Farmer's Journal, that manual labour by the spade, (so much ridiculed by many) is not only practicable, but profitable; and if more generally adopted, would be the means of finding abundant employment for those who want it. As evidence of the fact, he has this year 110 acres of ley wheat for which the land was prepared by manual labour only, drilling excepted, and a slight harrowing to cover the seed. He has also 30 acres of land which, four years ago, were old unproductive sward; but when labourers became plentiful, he brought the ground into cultivation by manual labour only, and has so continued it ever since, without any beast of draught being employed upon it, except for cartage and to drill and harrow. 7. Purity of Flour. -The following directions have been published, as affording means of ascertaining in some degree the purity of flour. 1. Grasp a handful briskly, and squeeze it half a minute, it preserves the form of the cavity of the hand, although it may be rudely placed upon the table. Adulterated flour, on the contrary, soon falls down; that mixed with whiting is the most adhesive, though it soon gives way; but if the adulteration be ground stones, bones, or plaster of Paris, it almost immediately falls. 2. Dip the fore finger and thumb in a little sweet oil, and take up a small quantity of the flour between them; if it be pure it may be rubbed for any length of time, and will not become adhesive, but if whiting be present it very speedily becomes putty, and adheres strongly; the pure flour also takes on a very dark colour from the oil, but the adulterated flour is but little altered in colour. 3. Lemon juice, or vinegar, will also shew the presence of whiting, by the agitation it produces in the flour; pure flour produces no particular effects with these fluids. 8. Oil from Pumpkins. -The seeds of pumpkins, which are commonly thrown away, afford abundance of excellent oil, which is said not only to burn well, and give a fine light, but to last longer, and afford less smoke than other oils. The cake remaining after the extraction of the oil may be used as food for cattle, who eat it with avidity. 9. Russian Spirit Level. -The Russians make their spirit levels by enclosing the alcohol in a round metallic box, covered by a strong piece of glass, very slightly concave, so as to leave a small bubble of air within. These levels indicate errors in planes supposed to be horizontal, in all directions, without any alteration of the instrument, and are in this respect much superior to the tube levels, which show errors in one direction only. The glass is fixed in the box before the alcohol is introduced which is by a screw hole in the under side of the instrument. 10. New Substance for Paper. The alga marina has again been recurred to in Sweden as a substance applicable in the for mation of paper. M. Ehrenhold, of Copenhagen, is the person who has lately discovered a method of working it; and, it is said, that the paper he makes is superior in whiteness and strength to any made from linen rags. 11. Rupert's Drops. A very good method of exhibiting the force exerted by those singular pieces of glass on being broken, is, to immerse them in a phial, or a tall glass, filled with water on breaking off the end with a pair of pincers, the body of the bulb is rent with such force as infallibly to break the vessel; even a stout wine bottle may be torn asunder by them in this way. под 12. Prize Subject in the Arts. - The Society for the Encouragement of National Industry in France has offered a prize of 3,000 francs for the discovery of a metal, or composition, of moderate price, which shall not be hurtful to the animal economy, non oxidizable either by water or the juice of vegetables, or which shall, at least, be much less so than iron and steel, without im parting any colour or taste to the substances in the preparation of which it is employed. ngad This metal, or composition, must possess hardness and tena city enough to serve for crotchets, for solid files, for instruments to mash, cut, separate, and divide pears, apples, beet-root, port tatoes, and other vegetable productions in common domestic uses It is required that the inventors reveal the nature of the metals which they may employ in the case of composition, and that specimens of each of these, along with a model of some known machine, by which the necessary experiments for determining the goodness of the principal component parts may be made, shall be deposited with the Society. The memoirs, specimens, &c., to be lodged with the Society before the 1st of March, 1821, and the prize to be decreed July, 1821. Foreigners may compete, and the Society have published some observations to assist those who are desirous of making re searches on the subject. II. CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 1. On a new Acid of Sulphur and Oxygen, by M.M. Welter and Gay Lussac*. The acid which will be the subject of this mes ** The origin of this acid is as follows:- At the time when M. Welter directed a bleaching establishment, he had occasion to act on the oxide of |