went through several editions, that of 1841 consisting of 10 volumes, --and, we believe, another larger edition has since been published. In 1822 he commenced the publication of an Annual Report on the Progress of the Physical Sciences, which has been published every year to the present time. These volumes are the most valuable record of chemical research extant, and contain a full report of the discoveries that have made the period to which they relate so remarkable in the history of chemistry. From 1806 to 1818, he published, with Hisinger, the periodical to which we have before alluded; and in these voTumes we find forty-seven papers by Berzelius, all giving an account of original researches by himself. In addition to these, he has published works on galvanism, on analytical chemistry, on mineralogy, and a vast number of papers in various Transactions.

The name of Berzelius has been too intimately connected with the history of chemistry, for the last forty years, for us, in this slight sketch, to give an adequate idea of the influence which his discoveries and generalizations have exerted upon the science. To him it is indebted for the discovery of several new elementary bodies,-more especially selenium, morium, and cerium. He first demonstrated the acid nature of silica, and was thus enabled to throw light on the composition of a series of interesting mineral compounds of silica with the metallic oxides. This subsequently led to a whole re-arrangement of mineral bodies, and contributed greatly to the advance of mineralogy. His discovery of selenium led him to investigate its various compounds, and compare them with the sulphurets. These investigations again resulted in his generalizations on the nature of the sulphur salts, and a new classification of the various salts. Subsequently, he investigated the compounds of fluorine, and arrived at some of the most important and valuable results that have yet been obtained by the analytical chemist.

Whilst Berzelius was writing the first edition of his "Manual of Chemistry," Dalton had promulgated his idea of the atomic constitution of matter, and Davy had made his great discovery of the metallic bases of the alkalies. These directed his attention to the laws of combination. He was led to institute researches, with the most scrupulous care, into the combining proportions of the various elements, giving to each its correct number, and was enabled to obtain results perfectly harmonious with theoretical calculations made on Dalton's laws. He was enabled to extend Dalton's law, that one atom of one body unites with one, two, or three, &c., atoms of another body, and showed that two atoms would unite with three, and with five. He also pointed out the great fact, that two compounds which contain the same electronegative body, always combine in such proportions, that the electronegative element of one is a multiple by a whole number of the same element of the other. He not only gave to elementary bodies their combining numbers, but introduced the system of symbols, by which chemical labor has been so greatly facilitated. Till the time of Berzelius, organic chemistry was a waste, with here and there an attempt to explain the phenomena of living beings upon chemical principles,

and which, from the entire want of experimental foundation, was even worse than useless. The compounds found in plants and animals, were not supposed to come within the category to which the laws of combination applied. Berzelius was the first to show that these laws could be applied to animal and vegetable products; and, in so doing, he opened the way for the discoveries of Mulder, Liebig, Dumas, Boussingault and others.

As a skilful manipulator, Berzelius has had few equals in the history of chemistry. To this we are indebted for the immense variety, number, and success of his analyses. Many of the analytical processes in use at the present time, have had their origin with him.

The personal appearance of Berzelins was that of a strong, healthy mau, with nothing in his habits or manners to impress a stranger with a sense of his powers. A chemist who visited him says, "He has nothing of pretence, reserve, or singularity about him; so that his plainness drew from a fellow-traveler of mine, whom he allowed me to introduce to him, the observation, 'I would never have thought him the great man he is said to be."" His attention to strangers was very great, especially to those who took an interest in chemistry. With these he would frequently spend hours in his laboratory, explaining his methods of working,-and, on their departure, he left the impression that he was the honored party. He was an early riser, and gave the first part of the day to his most important work, whatever that might be. He seldom either wrote or experimented in the evening, leaving that part of the day for reading and social relaxation. He had no particular times for writing or experimenting; when he had a work to finish, he would write sometimes for months, without performing an experiment, but if anything of importance occurred to him, during his writing, requiring further investigation, he would at once give up the pen, and work perhaps for weeks in his laboratory. Few men were more beloved in the city of Stockholm than Berzelius.

Were the merits of this great chemist less, we might not be able to afford to hint at any defects. But regarding him at a distance, he appears to us to have carried his caution beyond the requirements of scientific research. His feelings were conservative, and though constantly going forward to the new, he still clung with tenacity to the old. He was almost the last chemist of eminence that admitted Davy's theory of the elementary nature of chlorine. Even after envy and prejudice had given up their opposition, the caution of Berzelius withheld assent. In the recent advances of organic chemistry, also, and more especially in its applications to the physiology of plants and animals, Berzelius has looked on with the eye of a critic, and withheld, to the last, his adhesion to some of the advanced positions of this department of the science. We will allude to his criticisms on his brother chemists, which were sometimes unnecessarily severe, only to add that, in the latter years of his life, he has been heard to say, that he regretted having expressed himself in a way that could have given unnecessary pain to others. Lond. Athenæum, Aug. 1848.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

Report on Atmospheric Waves. By MR. BIRT.

The report consists of three parts:-the first having reference to the information we at present possess, relative to such individual waves as have been determined: the second treating of the barometric curves which result from the crossing of the north-westerly and south-westerly waves, the two principal systems common to Europe-the most prominent subject being that particular curve known as the "great symmetrical wave of November:" and the third embodying the results that have been obtained during the last year, illustrative of the symmetry of the "great wave," more particularly the locality of greatest symmetry, and the departure from symmetry in certain directions.

Under the second head, the author has thrown together the result of his inquiries into the forms presented by the barometric curves at certain stations, and has devoted attention to the symmetrical curve of November, as it has been observed at the Observatory at Greenwich, in the years 1841 to 1845. In connexion with this subject, the author remarked, "it has been assumed that the symmetrical wave of November consists of five subordinate waves, giving rise to the five maxima which characterize it, the central maximum forming the apex of the symmetrical curve, the remainder being subordinate thereto. (Association Reports, 1846, p. 125.)

"Upon a close inspection of the curves of the 'great wave,' as laid down from the Greenwich observations, six subordinate maxima can be traced, three on each side the central apex, which, in all the years, is by far the most prominent. The mean curve leads to the conclusion, that Greenwich is not the point of greatest symmetry, its closing portion being depressed more than two inches below the commencement. The next feature is the decided rise of the mercurial column, during a period of sixty-eight hours preceding the transit of the crest; the value of this rise is 7 inch, or about 010 inch per hour. The fall is not so precipitous; the barometer appears to be kept up in this locality by the first subordinate maximum succeeding the crest, so that, at the epoch of sixty-eight hours after transit, the value of the reading is more than two inches higher than at sixty-eight hours before transit. At eighty hours after transit a precipitous fall commences, which continues during the next twenty-four hours, the mercury sinking .36 inch, or about 015 per hour. The fall afterwards continues, with two slight interruptions, answering to the subordinate maxima, until the close of the wave, 148 hours after transit."

The peculiar features of the mean curve, especially the difference between the initial and terminal readings, 241 inch, combined with certain features exhibited by the "great wave," at its last return, has suggested the possibility of expressing numerically the departure from symmetry for any station that may be selected. This departure from symmetry is strikingly manifested by the observations of 1846, especially as we proceed from Brussels, the European nodal point, towards VOL. XVI,-3BD. SERIES.-No 5-NOVEMBER, 1848.

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Ireland and the north-west of Scotland, and is well seen in the series of curves, illustrating the author's report in the last volume of the Association Reports.

Three principal maxima characterize these curves on the 5th, the 9th, and the 12th of November; and the differences of altitude between those of the 5th and 12th, have been employed to indicate the deviation from symmetry in the direction already alluded to. The discussion of these differences, and the results deduced from them, form the third part of the report.

The author has laid down, on a map of the British Isles, these differences, and from them constructed a chart of the lines of equal deviation from symmetry-these lines range from 100 inch-which passes north-west of the Channel Islands, proceeds towards the Isle of Wight, skirts the shores of Sussex and Kent, and passes through Ramsgateto 550 inch, which passes through Limerick, is slightly curved as it crosses Ireland, and proceeds nearly in a straight line across the Scottish Islands, to the north-west of Great Britain. The values of these lines express the depression of the maximum of the 5th below that of the 12th. Among these lines, the author regards the direction of that representing 260 inch as the best determined. It appears to have passed near, and to the west of, Helstone, this station exhibiting a deviation of 258 inch; it then proceeded along the coasts of Cornwall and Devonshire, crossed the Bristol Channel, entered Wales, and continued its course across Glamorganshire, towards Brecon, which it left to the north-west, as it rather abruptly changed its direction, and proceeded towards Gloucester, which it passed through. It appears to have undergone considerable inflexion, as it traversed the central parts of England, rising again towards Nottingham, which is removed .025 inch from it to the west; it finally left the shores of England, at the south-eastern angle of Yorkshire, and entered on the German Ocean.

The author solicited attention to a feature which characterizes all these lines, especially the one just traced, viz., the decided inflexion they undergo as they pass over the land.

The chart exhibits two systems of inflexion, one being peculiar to Ireland and England; the general direction of the lines undergoing a change as the line of greatest symmetry is approached, the inflection being governed apparently by the masses of land; and the other to Scotland, the inflexion being very decided over the land northward of the Firth of Forth.

From the single instance discussed by the author, the result appears to be, that the symmetry of the barometric curve is departed from in a greater degree at inland stations; a greater difference between the points selected, being exhibited at such stations than at the sea coast on either side. The report closed with some remarks on the non-persistency of the direction of these lines of deviation from symmetry, and on the high probability that they revolve about the nodal point of the two principal systems of atmospheric waves, Brussels.

Lond. Athenæum, Aug. 1848.

On the Advantageous Use made of the Gaseous Escape of the Blast Furnaces of Ystalyfera. By MR. J. PALMER BUDD.

This communication drew attention to an economical application of the heated gases which are usually allowed to escape from the top of the iron furnaces. It appears that the gases which are evolved from these furnaces, escape at a temperature which is about the melting point of brass. In the iron works at Ystalyfera, where the iron is smelted by the use of anthracite coal, advantage has been taken of this in a most ingenious manner. By an arrangement, which is in its character exceedingly simple, but somewhat difficult to describe without a model, (Mr. Budd's description was illustrated by a very nicely constructed one,) the hot gas is led off into another channel, by means of a strong current, generated through a chamber and air-way, from a point just below the top of the iron furnace. It is conducted, very little heat being lost in the passage, under the boiler of a steam engine; and it is found to be at a sufficiently high temperature to heat the boiler, without the consumption of any fuel whatever. Hence an immense saving is effected. Although only one furnace, and one boiler, has hitherto been adapted to this purpose, it is found to effect a saving of £350 a year. We may consequently expect that, when the experiment is further extended, and more of the furnaces so arranged that this heat may be economized, and employed for the numerous useful purposes to which it is applicable in a large establishment, the saving will amount to many thousands annually. This communication is to be printed entire in the Transactions.

Ibid.

On a Self-Registering Thermometer, with Twelve Months' Tracings of its Work. By M. HARRISON.

1

The principle on which the instrument acts, is the difference in the expansion and contraction of two metals, from the effects of heat and cold, and acting by the direct pull of the contracting metal, when it is kept in a straight line. It is made sufficiently powerful to overcome any resistance which the fulcrums of the levers, or the tracing pencil, may cause. I have selected cast iron and hard-rolled copper as the best suited for the purpose. I find, from tables published by Smeaton and others, that copper expands of its length, while cast iron only expands, with a variation of 180 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer, which leaves a difference of about the of its length; and as the range of the thermometer in the shade, in this climate, is about 90 degrees, or half of 180, I have the part of the length of the copper bar employed as a moving power. I fixed upon a bar ten feet long, as being a convenient length; the two metals will then vary nearly the one-and-twentieth part of an inch, between the hottest day in summer, and the coldest day in winter. This variation I multiply by means of a compound lever, so as to get a sufficient scale to divide. The end of the last lever carries a pencil, which traces upon a revolving cylinder the variations that take place. In order to divide the scale