SCIENCE AND ART.

M. Isoard the real advantage of restoring to his strings their original sound; by lowering the moveable case, the string being struck when out of the slit where it receives He can then, by means of a simple pedal, which raises the nature of the sound of the instrument, and this power or depresses the air-case at pleasure, suddenly change offers numerous resources for varying the musical effects. By dividing the air-case into several portions separately moveable, each including an octave, it would be easy to combine the two kinds of sounds; for example, the sound of the piano might be retained for the high strings, and that of the reeds given to the low strings, or vice versa. The poverty of the artist has prevented him from preand he has been obliged to submit it attached to a very poor piano. He regrets exceedingly being unable to allow you to hear a much more powerful instrument, but he feels confident that in the rudiments of so incomplete a specimen, your sagacity will recognize its fundamental principle.-Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.

REPORT ON M. ISOARD'S NEW MUSICAL INSTRU-the action of the air, emits only the sound of the piano. MENT. In a very recent report given into the Academy of Sciences by a joint commission of that body and the Academy of the Fine Arts, there are the following remarks by M. Seguier the reporter:-The commission are most anxious to assure to M. Isoard, an artist so worthy of commendation for his knowledge of acoustics, and for his perseverance in applying it to useful purposes, the honour and the fruits of the invention of his new method of producing sounds. It is not to a lucky accident that his invention is to be ascribed; in its present state so remarkable, it is yet, we hope, destined to pro-senting to you his work realized according to his designs, duce the most powerful musical effects. A mechanician by profession, being a manufacturer of steam-engines in the establishment of Chaillot, M. Isoard was led by an irresistible fondness for music to attend the lectures of M. Savart, and it is from that rich source of information that he has derived his knowledge of the theory of vibrations; and from listening to these fertile instructions on the application of such theoretical views that he has deduced the possibility of impressing on a string powerful vibrations, causing it to perform the part of the reed of a wind instrument. The novelty of the contrivance excited the surprise of the professor, and the extent to which it might be carried immediately struck his acute perception. The ingenious artizan, who had been his assiduous and attentive pupil, became his friend; and I recollect with pleasure having been admitted by M. Savart to partake in his sympathies, and more than once I was a witness of the warm interest with which he was inspired by the undaunted mechanician, who, in the pursuit of his object, abandoned the sure resources of his profession, sacrificed every thing he had acquired by his toil, and sold piece by pięce his furniture and even his tools. The talented professor of acoustics warned his pupil of all the difficulties of his undertaking; and it is only now after ten years of constant and expensive experiments, that he presents the feeble but interesting specimen of the effects which will one day be produced by the application of the new method of producing sounds.

MUSICAL FESTIVALS are now frequent in all parts of Germany. The German festivals surpass ours in the magnitude of their scale, and do not contain those miscellaneous jumbles called Selections, by which our managers endeavour to cater for every sort of taste and every sort of capacity. On the 8th of this month, at Vienna, Mendelssohn's St. Paul was performed by a vocal and instrumental orchestra of one thousand and seventy-two persons. It was to continue for three days; the receipts to be employed in erecting monuments to Haydn, Gluck, Mozart, and Beethoven. -Examiner, Dec. 18.

October, we received from a correspondent at Berlin, a PRINTING AND PIRACY-NEW DISCOVERY.-Early in reprint of the four pages of the Athenæum, (published in London only on the 25th of September,) which contained The Porcelain the review, and its illustrations, of " form us-but obviously not by any known process. The Tower" "how produced, our correspondent could not incopy was so perfect a fac simile, that had it reached us under other circumstances, we should never have susTo convert the ordinary vibration of the string of a piano into a powerful sound of a wind instrument, all pected that it had not been issued from our own officethat M. Isoard does is to place under the strings a moveand even with our attention thus specially directed to the able case, divided into as many compartments as there subject, the only difference we could discover was, that are different strings which he wishes to cause to vibrate. the impression was lighter, and that there was less body in the ink; from which we infer that the process is esEach compartment communicates with a common portvent by means of a valve. The air, compressed by dou-sentially lithographic, the impression of the original page ble bellows, is stored in a special magazine; and it is admitted at the proper time into each compartment by means of the opening of the valve upon touching the key. The emission of the air, thus introduced for the purpose of continuing and augmenting the vibration of the string, takes place through a longitudinal slit in which the string may be inserted at will. We say intentionally, that the string struck by the air continues to vibrate; for M. Isoard, like his predecessors in 1790, has had to contend with the slowness with which certain strings commence their vibration; like them he has been able to triumph over the obstacle, but by a very different means. The much more simple mechanism of the hammer which strikes the string, has been preferred by him to the very ingenious but very complicated apparatus which rubs the string in order to cause its vibration to commence.

The choice of the hammer is happy, because it affords

being, in the first instance, transferred by some means on to the surface of the stone or zinc plate. This, however, is but a conjecture, and our correspondent is unable to throw light on the subject. In reply to our urgent request for further information, he thus writes:

"Berlin, Nov. 25.

"I have not ceased to exert myself to obtain the information you desire, but all I can collect is briefly this. The process by which these fac-simile reprints are produced, was discovered by a gentlemen at Erfurt, and is kept a profound secret. Iave since seen a copy of an Arabic MS. of the thirteenth century, and of a leaf of a book printed in 1483, both of which have been produced without the slightest injury to the originals, so that your Bibliomaniacs may despair of ever again seeing a unique copy. The parties in possession of the secret, are about to re publish here the Athenæum, and are to commence

operations with the first number of the coming year. I quickness of the camera operation is such, that a man have seen the draft of the Prospectus, in which they offer walking may be represented with his foot lifted as about to supply the trade at the rate of 3 thalers (98.) per annum. to take a step.-"The quantity of chlorine necessary to They will be content too, I understand, with 300 sub-produce the effect is exceedingly minute. In our early scribers, and from this fact, you may form a conjecture experiments we employed a quart bottle of the gas, openas to the probable cost of the process, which must be be- ing it in a deep box, and leaving out the stopper while low what the mere paper costs you." deliberately counting twenty. Replacing then the stopNow, so far as our pecuniary interests are concerned, per, the plate was laid for half a minute over an opening the question is not worth a second thought. The sale seemed not to have lost any of its original intensity of in the top. After fifty experiments the gas in the bottle of the London edition of the Athenæum in Germany is colour. Much care is necessary to avoid an excess of necessarily limited, by the enormous postoffice charges, chlorine. The principal cause of our early failures arose to the principal libraries, the literary and scientific socie- from an error of this kind. One may easily determine, ties, and some few wealthy individuals resident in the with any apparatus, the time and quantity necessary, by principal cities: and after all, the pecuniary loss, if any, laying a plate over the aperture and drawing it partially would be more than compensated by the gratifying testi-off at intervals. The action of the gas will then be mony thus borne to the character of the journal, and by greatest, of course, upon the part longest exposed. Too the honour of being the only English periodical repub- much care cannot be taken to exclude the light during lished on the Continent. But to book-publishers, more the process of preparation.-Athenæum, Jan. 8. especially to the publishers of costly works, illustrated with woodcuts, it is one of vital importance. Take, for example, the admirable series of works on Natural History, by Yarrell, Bell and others, published by Mr. Van Voorst. There can be no question that such works have had a very extensive sale all over the civilized world, for the copyright has been secured to the publisher by the enormous cost of re-producing the numberless beautiful illustrations-but here is a process by which the foreign pirate can re-produce the work, illustrations and all, at less than the cost of paper and press-work, and of course vast manufactories will be forthwith established, and every market, even in our colonies, inundated with these spurious editions. In proof that these are not merely conjectural or possible consequences, we may state that our correspondent further mentions, that preparations-A paper by M. Durocher, giving an account of his ge are already made to produce Knight's Shakspeare,' which is announced as forthcoming at sixpence a number! Surely, Government, under these circumstances, will now bestir itself, and take active measures for the establishment of some international law for the protection of the honest men of all nations and all nations are equally concerned. This, however, is a subject too vast to be entered on in a paragraph-and, indeed, the less necessary, as we have so often expressed our opinion. We have, therefore, only to add, that, for the satisfaction of those who are so deeply interested, we shall forward the copies received from Berlin, to our Office, in Wellington Street, where they will be exhibited, and may be compared with the originals.-Athenæum, Dec. 4.

THORWALDSEN. It is expected, that in the ensuing spring, Thorwaldsen will quit Rome, never to return. The celebrated sculptor is suffering from a catarrhal complaint, which obliges him to keep within doors. He employed himself very much in making designs, which are remarkable for extraordinary beauty of composition. | A series of his designs, in which the seven days of the week are represented by genii, are spoken of in terms of high encomium, by all who have seen them.-1b., Dec. 11. IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PROCESS OF PHOTOGRAPHY.The following is the substance of a communication made by Prof. Barnard to Prof. Silliman.-"Let the plate be prepared in every respect as if an impression were to be taken according to the method of M. Daguerre. Let it be then exposed for the space of half a minute to the action of chlorine gas, diluted with common air to such a degree that it may be inhaled without any particularly unpleasant sensation. It will then be found so extremely sensitive, that on being placed in a camera, with an aperture such as is commonly employed in taking miniature portraits, an impression will be produced upon it in the smallest time in which it is possible to remove and replace the screen. The completion of the picture over mercury is effected in the usual way. A plate thus chlorized, on exposure to light almost immediately assumes a very deep violet colour, nearly approaching black. The mercury is not directly tarnished, and in this state the picture is even more beautiful than after being washed with the hyphosulphate of soda. But without this washing it cannot be preserved."-The lights produced by this process are much finer and smoother than those of the original process-and the

BRANDY FROM WHORTLE-BERRIES.-A company has been formed in Russia, for the manufacture of wine and brandy from whortle-berries, according to the process introduced by General Count de Chassenon at St. Hubert, in Luxembourg, in 1837. The Russian government is said to have granted the gratuitous uses of premises in Lithuania, and to have ordered that all the utensils, which are now making in Paris, shall be imported free of duty. It is expected, by the company, that they will make 10,000 hectolitres of wine, and a proportionate quantity of brandy, every year. A report on this discovery will, it is said, be made at one of the early sittings of the Academy of Sciences.-Ib.

The

This

ERRATIC BLOCKS.-Academy of Sciences, Jan. 10, 17. ological researches in the north of Europe, and especially of the phenomena of erratic blocks, occupied both meet. ings. He observed, that the streaks found on the surfaces of rounded rock, were in Norwegian Lapland always accompanied by heaps of diluvial matter. The erratic blocks were generally either of granite or gneiss; but between St. Petersburg and the Niemen, no less than fourteen different kinds of rock were found, all the known sites of which were in Finland. These blocks were sometimes twenty and twenty-five feet in thickness, and their angles by no means rounded or worn. Volga is the most eastern limit in which these blocks are found. Blocks of granite appear to have been carried to greater distances than those of limestone. Another circumstance to be remarked was, that these blocks lie either in or upon vast deposits of sand, or diluvial matter regularly stratified in nearly horizontal layers. showed that the sand had been deposited in a sea not greatly agitated, and, therefore, the supposition that the blocks had, in all cases, been carried by a violent diluvial current, was not admissible. It was probable, M. Durocher thought, that these blocks had been floated on ice fields, and had been deposited at the bottom of the sea by the melting of the ice. At the same time, he thought it evident that an immense diluvial current, the origin of which there was as yet no means of conjecturing, had taken place; that it had commenced very far north; that it was probably accompanied by an immense quantity of floating ice, and that it had spread over all that part of Europe comprised between Greenland and the Ural Mountains in Russia. The current had been turned southwards, covering Sweden, Norway, and Finland, breaking off rocks from the mountains as it passed along, polishing the surface of the rocks, and leaving streaks on them from the action of the sand, stone, and rocks, which it rolled onwards. The current had extended into Germany, Russia and Poland, but its force had apparently become weaker as it went further south; towards the east it had been lost in the immense plains of Russia, and in Germany had been stopped by ranges of mountains. Long lines of osars or heaps of detrital matter, were found accompanying the erratic blocks, and their prevalent direction was from N.N.E., to S.S.W. No traces of human remains had been found in any of these diluvial deposits. The Academy passed a vote of thanks to M. Durocher for his elaborate researches.-I., January 29.

OBITUARY.

LORD POLWARTH. It is with deep regret that we have just heard of the demise of another of our most highly esteemed country gentlemen-the venerable Hugh Scott, Lord Polwarth-which melancholy event took place at Mertoun-house, on Tuesday evening at eight o'clock. He was the representative of that border line of Scotts, which, descending from Wat o' Harden, is so distinguished in Sir Walter Scott's ballads, and the Border minstrelsy. Lord Polwarth had attained the advanced age of 83, and is succeeded in his titles and estates by his eldest son, the Hon. Henry Francis Hepburn Scott, now Lord Polwarth.-Kelso Mail.

THE DUKE OF CLEVELAND.-We regret to announce that his Grace the Duke of Cleveland, died on Saturday, the 29th, at his residence in St. James's square. The noble Duke just deceased was William Harry Vane, son of the second Earl of Darlington, born on the 27th of July, 1766. He was consequently in his 76th year. His family owes its origin to Sir Henry Vane, who was knighted at the battle of Poictiers. Sir Harry Vane, who took so active a part in the civil wars, and who was beheaded on Tower Hill after the Restoration, was also an ancestor. Sir Christopher Vane was the first of the family called to the peerage, having been created Baron Barnard in 1699. The third Lord Barnard was created Earl of Darlington in 1754, and his Grace, the late Duke succeeded his father in the peerage in 1792. In 1827 he was created a Marquis, and a Duke in 1833. His Grace was Lord Lieutenant, and Vice Admiral of the County of Durham, and a knight of the Garter. In politics he was a whig, but he rarely spoke in public. He was much attached to field-sports, and always maintained his stud on the most liberal scale. The noble Duke is succeeded in his title, and immense estates, by his eldest son, the Earl of Darlington, M. P. for Salop, now in his 54th year, whose politics, as is well known, differ from those advocated by his late father.-Times, Jan. 31.

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46

of the Right Rev. Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Ossory, who expired at the Palace, Kilkenny, on Friday evening last. On the 10th ult. a commission de lunatico inquirendo took place at Dublin to inquire into the state of the right both rode and walked out, he was still in a state tantarev. deceased's mind, when it was proved that, although he mount to childishness, and quite incapable of managing value of £6,000 per annum, and a large sum in the The late bishop possessed estates to the

his affairs.

funds.-Ib.

MR. PEEL, an uncle of Sir Robert Peel, died very suddenly at Exmouth, in Devonshire, on Wednesday, having fallen from his chair in a fit of apoplexy while The deceased gentleman sitting at table with his son. was possessed of immense wealth, and is said to have died intestate. The dividends accruing on his funded property for the past half year amount to upwards of attorney, and it is rumoured that he has left upwards of £30,000, which were received on Thursday by power of two millions of money.-Globe.

JOHN VAUGHAN, ESQ. (treasurer of the American Philosophical Society, one of the founders and president of the Institution for the Blind, an active member of the St. George's Society, and held for many years several foreign consulships, and the agency for Lloyd's. He was born in London, and resided in Philadelphia for sixty years, was a personal friend of Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Priestly, and others, and will be long remembered for his active benevolence, intelligence, and usefulness,) at Philadelphia, aged 86.-Britannia, Jan. 22.

MR. NIGHTINGALE.-We have already mentioned the death of Mr. Nightingale, whose imitations of modern actors, at the Adelphi Theatre, were so good, and whose ability as a likeness sketcher was never excelled. We now find that his death was attended with the most distressing circumstances. It appears that for some time past the deceased had been afflicted with severe nervous excitement, but had partially recovered from its effects. Being invited to breakfast with a friend, he after breakfast commenced taking the likeness of one of the children of his friend, and while so engaged a fly dropped on the back of his left hand; and, though a moment before he Out-appeared in a composed state of mind, such was the effect that this trifling circumstance had upon his nerves, that he instantly became bereft of reason, and remained so until his death, which took place three days after.Examiner.

MR. EDWARD HOWARD.-We are sorry to announce the sudden death, by apoplexy, of the popular and distinguished writer, Mr. Edward Howard, the author of Rattlin the Reefer,' ""The Old Commodore," ward Bound," Jack ashore, ," "The Life of Sir Sidney Smith," and many other works of distinguished merit, Mr. Howard was one of the most copious and successful contributors to the higher branches of periodical literature. -Morning Herald.

MR. SOTHEBY.-It is with unfeigned regret that we have to announce the loss to the public of one of its oldest literary servants in the death of Mr. Sotheby, for upwards of half a century at the head of the firm of the same name in Wellington-street, which event took place on Tuesday morning, at his residence, Cleve's-lodge, Chelsea, in the 71st year of his age. This firm, which was the first established in this country for the exclusive sale of literary property by auction, commenced in the year 1743, and has continued ever since to be the principal channel through which the most noted collections of book, prints, and other objects of vertu, both public and private, have been brought into the market. If amenity in the discharge of his public duties, an excellent taste, profound acquaintance with the objects of his profession, and extensive acquirements in those branches of litera: ture and the fine arts with which it is so intimately connected, be titles to the sympathy of the public, we are sure it will not be withheld on the present occasion.

Times.

JOHN SMITH, Esq., OF DALE PARK.-This eminent banker, who died on the 20th inst., at his seat in Sussex, in his 75th year, was brother to the late, and uncle to the present, Lord Carrington. He formerly represented Midhurst and the county of Sussex in Parliament, and has died extremely wealthy. The bulk of his large fortune goes to J. A. Smith, Esq., M. P., of Belgravesquare, his eldest son, who is married to a daughter of Sir Samuel C. Jervoise, Bart.-Britannia, Jan. 29.

direct transmission of his immortal name in the male

Charles Scott

have to notice the death (the intelligence of which is now MR. CHARLES SCOTT.-It is a melancholy thing to confirmed) in Persia, of young Charles Scott, the second son of Sir Walter, which almost cuts off the hope of the line, as the present Sir Walter, now in India, has been married a number of years without issue. was an intelligent and estimable youth. We remember letters to the late Mr. Rees, of the house of Longman his first visit to London, recommended by his father's and Co., and to the Editor of this Journal, to put him in the way of seeing the lions. He was then a mere MISS ISABEL HILL.-It is with the deepest regret that boy, but had been the companion of the author of the we state that this lady, whose name was so well known Chronicles of the Canongate in his observant rambles among those of the contributors to the literature of the among the localities of that old division of Edinburgh; day, expired on Thursday last. She was the sister of for (this was whilst the grand mystery of these writings Mr. Benson Hill, the new editor of the "Monthly Magawas preserved as a world's talk) on one occasion, whilst zine," and a writer whose genuine humour has afforded walking with him through Wych Street, he inadvertently us such frequent entertainment. She was the constant betrayed the secret by saying, How like these old and amiable companion of her bereaved brother, and ex-gable-end houses are to those in Carruthers Close and pired in his arms. We sincerely sympathize with him Wynds about the Canongate, where my father has taken under his irreparable loss. This is the second instance me so often when he was getting his descriptions for the of loss to the literary world by death during the past Chron. Mr. C. Scott was afterwards placed in week.-Britannia, Jan. 8. an official and diplomatic course of training-we rather think under the auspices of Mr. Canning; and was with

BISHOP OF OSSORY.-We have to announce the death