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12. Enquiries concerning the Nature of a metallic Substance, lately sold in London as a new Metal, under the Title of Palladium. By RICHARD CHENEVIX, Esq.

F. R. S. M. R. 1. A.

This is by far the most important chemical paper that has appeared during the last twelvemonth, and confers new distinction on the already illustrious name of its author.

The substance advertized by the name of Palladium, as a new metal, was possessed of the following properties. It was in the form of thin, flexible, not very elastic lamine, which had evidently been rolled out in a flatting mill; its sp. grav. was from 10.972 to 11.482.: its galvanic properties were the same as those of gold and silver. Upon exposure to the blowpipe, the surface not exposed to the flame became blue. When placed in an open vessel, in a temperature greater than required for the fusion of gold, no oxidizement, or appearance of fusion, was observable. At a considerably higher heat it run into a button, of a greyish white colour, harder than wrought iron, and the sp. grav. of which was = 11.871. If sulphur is added to Palladium, when strongly heated, a combination immediately takes place, and the mass remains fluid, even at a very low red heat. It unites with gold, platina, silver, copper, lead, tin, bismuth, iron, and arsenic, and the sp. grav. of the alloy is in most of the cases remarkably different from the result obtained by calculation. Thus the sp. grav. of equal parts of Palladium and platina ought, by calculation. to be 17.241., but by experiment it amounts only to 15.141, being a deficiency of 2.1.: on the other hand, equal parts of Palladium and bismuth, which, by calculation, should give a sp. grav. = 10.652 amounts, by experiment, to 12.587, being an excess of 1.935. The fixed alkalis diminish the brilliancy, and effect a partial solution of Palladium when fused with it. Ammonia, by long digestion, acquires a slight bluish tinge, and dissolves a minute portion of this metal. The three mineral acids, and the nitro-muriatic, act with more or less violence, and form beautiful red solutions; whence precipitates may be obtained by the usual reagents.

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From some of the properties of Palladium, Mr Chenevix was induced to believe that platina was one of its ingre. dients; and, after some previous expe

riments, he poured some green sulphate of iron into a salt of platina, and also into a salt of mercury, without occa sioning any precipitation in either; but, upon mixing the two liquors, a copious deposit took place, exactly similar to the precipitate from nitro-muriat of Palladium, by the same re-agent. The pre. cipitate being exposed to a strong heat, entered into fusion, and produced a metallic button, not to be distinguished from Palladium.

In the course of his experiments on the combination of mercury with platina, Mr. Chenevix obtained various mixtures, which, though differing materially from platina, were yet by no means possessed of exactly the same properties as Palladium. The most successful method of preparing this alloy, he found to be the following.

Dissolve 100 grains of platina in nitro-muriatic acid, and add to the solution red nitrous oxyd of mercury, till the liquor is completely saturated, then pour in a solution of green sulphat of iron, and heat the mixture on a sandbath; in less than half an hour a copious precipitate will fall down, which, when well washed and dried, is to be strongly heated in a charcoal crucible, and will afford a button, weighing 135 grains, consisting of about two parts platina to one of mercury.

All attempts made by Mr. Chenevix to decompose either the advertized Palladium or his own imitation of it were wholly without success, but in the vari ous experiments to which they were subjected they comported themselves eractly in the same manner, so that no rea sonable doubt can be entertained of their identity. The consequences that are drawn from these facts, by the author, are of the utmost importance. We learn that mercury, the most fusible and one of the most volatile of the metals, may be combined with another so as wholly to lose its characteristic properties; that no sort of dependence is to be placed on the calculated specific gravity of an alloy from the known gravity of its com ponent parts, and that the obstinacy with which the metals have hitherto opposed all attempts at their decomposition, is far from being a reason for chemical phi losophers, to give up in despair all fur ther endeavours.

13. An Account of the Sinking of the Dutch Frigate Ambuscade, of 32 Guns, near the

Great Nore, with the Mode used in recovering her. By Mr. JOSEPH WHIDBEY, Master Attendant in Sheerness Dock-yard. At eight o'clock in the morning of the 9th of July, 1801, the Dutch frigate Am buscade left the moorings in Sheerness harbour, her fore-sail, top-sails, and topgallant sails being set, with the wind aft blowing strong. In about thirty minutes she went down by the head, near the Great Nore; not giving the crew time to take in the sails, nor the pilot or officers more than four minutes notice before she sunk, by which unfortunate event twenty-two of the crew drowned.

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This extraordinary accident was owing to the hawse-holes being extremely large and low, the hawse-plugs not being in, and the holes being pressed under water by a crowd of sail on the ship, through which a sufficient quantity of water got in, unperceived, to carry her to the bot

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The vessel, though sunk, having sustained no external injury, it became an object of importance to weigh her up; this was successfully effected by Mr. Whibbey, by means of lighters, in an ingenious manner, but incapable of being understood without a reference to the plate.

14. Observations on a new Species of hard Carbonate of Lime; also on a new Species of Oxide of Iron. By the Count DE BOURNON, F. R. S.

The carbonate of lime here described

is in the form of hexahedral pyramids, is so hard as to scratch with great ease fluor-spar, and even to take off the polish of glass; it possesses a vitreous fracture, and cannot be reduced to the primitive rhomboid; Mr. Chenevix analyzed it, but found its composition to differ in no respect from the softer carbonate. The iron ore crystallizes in perfect cubes, is not affected by the magnet, and holds a middle station between the attractable octahedral iron ore and the hæmatites. 15. Account of the Changes that have happened during the last Twenty-five Years in the relative Situation of Double Stars, with an Investigation of the Cause to which they are owing. By WILLIAM HERSCHEL, LL.D.F.R.S.

The object of this interesting paper, which, from the minuteness of its details, is incapable of being abstracted, is to shew the probability, that many of the

ANY. REV. Vol. II.

apparently double stars are real binary combinations, held together by their mutual attraction.

16.

An Account of the Measurement of an Arc of the Meridian, extending to Dunnose in the Isle of Wight, latitude fifty degrees, thirty-seven minutes, eight seconds, to Clifton in Yorkshire, latitude fifty-three degrees, twenty-seven minutes, thirty-one seconds, in Course of the Operations carried on for the Trigonometrical Survey of England in the Years 1800, 1801, and 1802. By Major W. MUDGE, of the Royal Artillery, F.R.S.

Major Mudge is well known as the able successor to General Roy in the important work of carrying on the trigonometrical survey of England. The memoir before us, though of vast consequence, is from its very nature incapable of abridgment. The first part is occupied by a very minute description of the zenith sector employed by Major Mudge, and the last specimen of the accuracy and ingenuity of the late Mr. Ramsden. To this succeeds an account of the operations in the year 1802, consisting of ob servations at Dunnose, the southern extremity of the meridian line at Clifton, near Doncaster, its northern extremity; and at Arbury Hill and the intermediate stations. In 1801 a base 26342.7 feet the north-west corner of Lincolnshire, long was measured on Misterton-carr, in being the fourth that has been ascertained in the progress of the survey (the three others were on Hounslow Heath,

Salisbury Plain, and Sedgemoor.)

The ascertained distance between Dunnose and Clifton amounts to 1036334 feet or 196.27 miles; between Dunnose and Greenwich 59.41 miles, and between Clifton and Greenwich 136.86 miles. The length of a degree on the meridian, latitude fifty-two degrees, two minutes, twenty seconds, is 60820 fathoms, and of a degree, in latitude fifty-one degrees, thirty-five minutes, eighteen seconds, is

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60864 fathoms. By combining the observations of the English and French astronomers we have a series of triangles from Clifton to Barcelona in Spain, and the distance between the two places amounts to 4411968 feet or $35.6 miles.

As an appendix to the memoir are subjoined the latitudes and longitudes of the places intersected in the survey of Essex, Suffolk, Surry, Middlesex and Kent.

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ART. II. The Philosophical Transactions, abridged. 4to. Vol. I. pp. 744.

THE transactions of the Royal Society of London form the largest and most valuable collection extant of memoirs on mathematical and experimental philosophy. The early volumes, however, are extremely difficult to procure, and the price of the whole is greater than many persons can conveniently appropriate to this purpose. There are two ways of obviating these inconveniences, either by publishing a new edition of the entire work in a more economical form, or by means of judicious abridgment to bring it into still smaller compass. For our own parts we should

have preferred the former plan, yet this preference by no means renders us unwilling to bestow all merited commen dation on the present work. The mathematical papers are entrusted to Dr. Hutton, those on natural history to Dr. Shaw, and the medical and chemical ones to Dr. R. Pearson. The memoirs of every class, as far as we have examined them, are very skilfully abridged, nothing use. ful is sacrified to mere brevity, and the publication richly deserves, and we doubt not will obtain, the patronage of the philosophical world.

ART. III. Asiatic Researches ; or Transactions of the Society instituted in Bengal for en quiring into the History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature of Asia. Vol. VII. 8vo.

THE man of letters might well feel proud in contemplating the permanence and pre-eminence of literature, if that recollection were not accompanied by the melancholy knowledge, that all other things are perpetually changing and passing away. Arrian, and Joinville, and Froissart, continue to act upon mankind, when all the kingdoms of Alexander have lost their religion, their language, and their very names, when Louis is neither respected in his own country as one of her kings, nor revered as one of her saints; and when the Guelphs are seated upon the throne of the Plantagenets. The east, by its more rapid revolutions, more strikingly exemplifies this triumph of intellect over power.Ferishta, and Castanheda, and Valentyn, are still consulted with interest, when the conquests of the Moguls, and the Portugueze, and the Dutch, have yielded to other invaders; and there may come a time, when Orme will be regarded like Barros as the historian of victories, of which no other effect shall be remaining With this feeling we have taken up this book, recollecting, in that kind of melancholy which will mingle itself with a smile, what mighty events have been necessary to its production! the voyage of Gama, the victories of Albuquerque, the loss of Sebastain, and the triumphs of Clive! If a link in the chain had been

broken, we should neither have supped our cheerful cup of hyson this evening, nor have sate down after it to review the seventh volume of the Asiatic Researches.

The first article is on the course of the Ganges, through Bengal, by Major R. H. Colebrooke.

The Ganges, and the other rivers of Bengal, are frequently changing their course, sweeping away their banks, and forming other shores or islands with their spoils.

"It is chiefly during the periodical floods, or while the waters are draining off, that the greatest mischief is done; and if it be consi dered, that at the distance of two hundred miles from the sea, there is a difference of more than twenty-five feet in the perpendcular height of the waters, at this season, while at the outlets of the rivers (excepting the effect of the tides) they preserve nearly

the same level at all seasons, some idea may be formed of the increased velocity with which the water will run off, and of the ha

roc which it will make on the banks. Ac

cordingly it is not unusual to find, when the rainy season is over, large portions of the bank sunk into the channel; nay, even whole fields and plantations have been sometimes destroyed; and trees which, with the growth the most violent storms, have been suddenly of a century, had acquired strength to resist undermined, and hurled into the stream.

"The encroachments, however, are as often carried on gradually, and that partly in the dry season; at which time the natives have leisure to remove their effects, and change the sites of their dwellings, if too near the steep and crumbling banks. I have seen whole villages thus deserted, the inhabitants inland, or had removed entirely to some neigh of which had rebuilt their huts on safer spots bouring village or town. Along the banks of the Ganges, where the depredations of the stream are greatest, the people are so accus tomed to such removals, that they build their

huts with such slight materials only, as they can, upon emergency, carry off with ease; and a brick or mud wall is scarcely ever to be met with in such situations."

The islands which are formed with these ruins are taken possession of by the natives, as soon as they appear to be sufficienly firm. It generally happens, that in a few years they are united with the main land, the intervening channel being closed up; they are then distinguished from it by their having few or no trees. The largest at present existing contains about twenty square miles of land, but the same process by which they were formed, acts to their removal; and the system of creation and destruction, or rather of perpetual change and renovation, is for ever exhibited to the worshippers of the Trimourtee.

Upon the shallows of these rivers, Major Colebrooke offers a suggestion which deserves to be attended to.

"As the shallows which are produced from the causes above-mentioned are only partial, affecting only in a small degree, comparatively with their lengths, the channels of these rivers, it might be possible to counteract them in such a manner, as to produce a more equal distribution of water; and as the depth which would be requisite for boats of a modern burthen is inconsiderable, perhaps it might be effected with much less labour and expence than might at first be imagined.

"I was led to this supposition, from frequently seeing that the mere operation of dragging by force a boat, or budgerow, through any of the shallows, tended, by stir ring up the sands, to deepen the channel. If, therefore, round or flat-bottomed boats can produce such an effect, in how much greater a degree might it not be done by means of a machine constructed for the purpose, which might be dragged to and fro through the shallow place, until a sufficient depth of water should be obtained for the passage of boats. If such machines, which might be contrived somewhat in the form of a large iron rake, and occasionally to go on wheels, were to be stationed at the several villages or towns in the vicinity of the shallows, it is possible that the Zemeendars might be induced, for a moderate consideration, to furnish people or cattle to put them in motion, whensoever it might be necessary."

This paper is elucidated by charts and

sections.

2. On Singhala or Ceylon, and the Doctrines of Bhoodha, from the Books of the Singhalais, by Captain Mahony.

The fundamental article of the Ceylonese mythology is singularly whimsical;

they hold the universe to be under the government of a bhooddha, for bhooddha is an official title. The present uni verse has been successively administered by four. The place is now vacant; but Sahampatta Maha Brachma, the supreme of all the gods, holds it in commendam, till Maitree Bhooddha, the fifth, who is to come, shall make his appearance. is to be the last of this universe; and when this shall have past away, Maha Brachma will pass in ascent through the seventeen heavens above his own, till he attains at length the necessary qualifica tions to become a bhooddha himself.

He

The religion of Gautemeh, the last bhoodda, is that which now prevails in Ceylon.

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Before his appearance on earth, he "was a god, and the supreme of all the gods. the solicitations of many of the gods he descended on earth, and was frequently born as a man, in which character he exercised every possible virtue, by extraordinary instances of self-denial and piety. He was at length born of Mahamaya Devee, after a pregnancy of ten months, and had for father Soodoneneh Raja. He lived happily with his queen Yassodera, and forty thousand concubines, for thirty-one years; the six next he passed in the midst of wildernesses, qualifying himself to be a bhooddha. At the close of this ' period his calling became manifest to the world, and he exercised his functions as bhooddha for forty-five years. He died in Cooseemarapooree, at the court of Malleleh Raja, Tuesday, the 15th of May; from which period the bhooddha warooseh, or era of bhooddha, is dated, which now (A.C. 1797) amounts to 2339 years.

"Bhooddha is not, properly speaking, considered as a god, but as having been born man, and in the end of time arrived at the dignity of bhooddha, on account of his great virtues and extraordinary good qualities. The title of bhooddha was not conferred on him by any superior power, he adopted it by his own sovereign will, in the same manner as he became man; both of which events were prodicted ages before. Bhoodha, after his death ascended to the hall of glory, called mookze, otherwise nirgoowage, which is a place above, and exceeding in magnificence the twentysixth heaven; there he will live for ever, in happiness and incorruptibility, never to be born again in the world, where his doctrine is at present extant, and will continue in all its splendour for five thousand years, accoiding to his own prophecy."

Maha Brachma, and the whole host of deities, have neither flesh, bones, nor material bodies, yet they seem to have hair on their heads and teeth, and their skins are luminous. The breath of life in man

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is compared to a leech, that must attach itself to one thing with its mouth, before it will loosen its hold on another with the tail. The body, therefore, does not die till this living spirit has found another resting place, which it chuses by a fatal instinct, according to its deserts.

That this religion has been conquered by the Bramins in Hindostan is certain; their bhooddha is like our doctrine of eonsubstantiation, the relic of a faith which once struggled for superiority, but is now obsolete and neglected. It is not, however, so easy to explain the traces of the Hindoo system which appear among the Ceylonese. A far more minute and methodical account of this mythology, as it exists in Ava, may be found in the last volume of the Asiatic Researches, by Dr. Buchanan.

3. Narrative of a route from Chunarghur to Yertnagoodum, in the Ellore Circar, by Captain J. T. Blunt.

Captain Blunt was employed by government to explore a route through that part of India, which lies between Berar, Orissa, and the northern Circars; he had with him a party of a Jamadar, and thirty Sepoys. The people among whom he travelled seem to have been desperate savages.

“I never indeed met with a people who shewed less inclination to hold converse of any kind with strangers, than these mountaineers in general. This disposition in a great measure frustrated every attempt I made to acquire information of their manners and customs; among which the sacrifice of birds, by suspending them by the tips of their wings

to the trees and bushes, on each side of the road, and leaving them to perish by degrees, was almost the only peculiar one I could discover. The cause of this cruel practice I never could learn; yet I frequently observed, that although the birds were suspended at a convenient height for travellers to pass under them, the Goands would never do so, but always took a circuit to avoid them. I once observed a ram extended by the feet in the

same manner. Their food appeared to be the most simple imaginable, consisting chiefly of the roots and produce of their woods. They go for the most part naked; when cold they alleviate it by making fires, for which their forests supply them with abundance of fuel; and when the heat of the sun becomes oppressive, they seck shelter, and recline under the shade of large trees.

They always endeavour to surprize their enemy, in preference to engaging him in open combat, however confident of superiority they may be. With that view, when on any hostile excursion, they never kindle a fire, but carry with them a sufficiency of ready-dressed

provisions, to serve during the probable tenn of their absence; they march in the night, proceeding with the greatest expedition, and observing the most profound silence. When cealed in a kind of hammock, which they day overtakes them they halt, and lie confasten among the branches of the loftiest trees, so that they cannot be perceived by any person passing underneath. From this circum stance of ambuscade, the idea has originated of their living in trees instead of houses.When they have, in this manner, approached their enemy unperceived, they generally make their attack about the dawn, and commence it with a great shout, and striking of their spears against their shields. If they are suc cessful in their onset, they seldom spare either age or sex; at times, however, they make captives of the children, and often adopt them into their families when they have none of their own; and the only slaves among them are captives thus taken."

There should have been a map to elu. cidate this journal.

4. An Account of a new Species of Delphinus, an Inhabitant of the Ganges, by Dr. Roxburgh.

5. Translation of one of the Inscrip tions on the Pillar at Delee, called the Lat of Feeroz Shah, by Henry Colebrooke, esq.

There are six inscriptions upon this pillar; of five no translation has been yet favourable, they are therefore here engraved. The other was translated in the first volume of these Researches, by Sir William Jones, but from an imperfect copy; and it is worthy of remark, that the date which Sir William suspected to be 123 of the era of Vicramaditya, or A.D. 67, proves to be 1220 of that era, or A.D. 1164. If similar means of detection should ever be found, we have little doubt that all Hindoo chronology would shrink in at least an equal proportion.

6. An Account of the Kookies or Lunctas, by John Macrae, esq.

The Kookies are a race of mountain

eers, living to the north-east of the Chittangong province, the least civilized of any of these mountain tribes that are as yet known to the Europeans; they have the flat nose, small eyes, and broad round face, which characterise all the natives of eastern Asia. They are di vided into a number of distinct tribes, each other, though all acknowledge the who may be said to be independent of authority of one or other of their heredi tary rajahs. The chieftainship in the tribes is elective.

They ornament the inside of their

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