ion between ordinary somnambulism or sleep-walking, and the intuitive power, independent of the senses, which is developed during the fits produced by the magnetick influence. Sleep-walkers perform amazing feats, and execute the most intricate and delicate operations, without the natural sight which would be necessary in a waking person, even to attempt such hazardous and difficult processes. Some persons, on the other hand, who have been artificially thrown into this state, or something like it, by magnetism, have shown themselves to possess senses and powers of action distinct from those which we use in our waking moments. The French Academy report upon four individuals who exerted greater strength and agility while magnetized than in their usual state; upon two who, with their eyes closed, distinguished and described objects placed before them; upon other two who foresaw, several months previously, the day, the hour, and the minute of the access and return of epileptick fits, and one who announced the period of his cure; and upon one, who, when thrown into magnetick somnambulism, and placed in contact with an individual in unsound health, pronounced in three several instances, the exact internal state of these persons, one of which descriptions was confessed by the gentleman so inspected to be correct so far as he knew, and another was found equally so, upon dissection after death. "M. Petetin secretly placed pieces of cake, biscuit, tarts, &c. upon the stomach of one of these patients, which was immediately followed by the taste of the particular article in the mouth. When the substance was enveloped in silk stuff, no sensation was felt by the patient; but the taste was immediately perceived on removing the covering. An egg was covered over with varnish, and the patient felt no taste until the varnish was removed. One of the patients distinguished a letter addressed to her, which was folded four times, enclosed in a semi-transparent box, and held in M. Petetin's hand upon her stomach. 66 A letter was placed upon the fingers of one of the patients, who immediately said, If I were not discreet, I could tell you the contents; but to prove that I have read it, there are just two lines and a half.' The same patient enumerated exactly the most remarkable articles which were in the pockets of a whole company. "These phenomena are sufficiently wonderful; but the following experiment afforded still more surprising results. Another patient, Madame de St. Paul, was in a state of as perfect somnambulism as the preceding, only that, during the crisis, she was incapable of speaking. She carried on a conversation, however, by means of signs, with the Chevalier Dolomieu, brother to the celebrated naturalist, who interrogated her mentally. After placing the chain,' says M. Petetin, upon the epigastrium of the patient, I gave the ring to M. Dolomieu. No sooner had this gentleman touched his lips, than the features of Madame de St. Paul expressed attention. Every question addressed to her mentally gave a new expression to her countenance, and produced a great change upon that of the interrogator. She ended by smiling, and making two approving signs with her head. M. Dolomieu declared that this lady had answered categorically to his thoughts.' 16 Perception without the use of the senses is well known to have frequently taken place in diseased persons; and it is a familiar fact, that where one sense is extinguished, ar ther sometimes takes up its operations, and, at least in part, supplies its place. Instances of persons who could see with the stomach are frequent, and perfectly well authenticated. The physician Van Helmont, by tasting a particular poisonous root, ceased for several hours to hear, think, know, or imagine any thing by means of his head or brain, and found that all the functions of that organ were transferred to the pit of the stomach, where it “M. Dolomieu then requested the patient to answer, is supposed, the capital of the nervous system is situ- by affirmative or negative signs, to the questions ated. M. Petetin, an eminent physician at Lyons, which he was about to put to her aloud. He suchad a cataleptic patient-a lady-who seemed for a ceeded in making her express that what he had in his long time to be in a state of complete torpor and in-pocket was a silver seal with three sides, and the sensibility. He discovered, however, by accident, name of the animal engraved on his arms. that she heard him perfectly when he spoke upon her stomach. Having satisfied himself of this fact by repeated trials, he afterwards perceived that the case was the same in regard to the senses of sight and sriell. His patient read with the stomach, even through an intervening dark body. At last he found that it was not necessary for him to speak immediately upon the stomach; but it was quite sufficient to speak at the extremity of a conductor, of which the other extremity rested upon that part of the patient's body. Petetin published an account of these facts above forty years ago. He subsequently found other cataleptick patients, who exhibited precisely the same phenomena, with this difference, that, in some cases, the faculties were found to be transferred, not only to the epigastrium, or pit of the stomach, but also to the extremities of the fingers and toes. In others, where these phenomena took place, there was a prodigious development of the intellectual powers, and a foresight of their future diseased symptoms. An account of some of his experiments is thus given from his posthumous volume by Mr. Colqu Finally, it was found, in the course of these experiments, that if several persons form a chain, the last having his hand upon the stomach of the patient, and the first, who is at the greatest distance, speak in the hollow of his hand, the patient will hear perfectly well, but will cease to hear even the loudest voice, if the communication between the chain be interrupted by a stick of sealing-wax." Such facts as these-for that they are facts is not to be disputed-testify that there are powers and susceptibilities in our frames with which we are yet imperfectly acquainted, but which may be developed hereafter to such a degree as to be eminently serviceable to mankind. That there is a connexion between the magnetick phenomena and those described immediately above, seems beyond a doubt; and that electricity enters into the latter, is evident from the fact of a non-conducting substance deranging the effect. Little else is yet known on this curious subject; but when more facts shall have been amassed, it will both be more easily reduced to a system, and more generally and readily believed. Animal magnetism will yet, in all probability, explain many things which we now look upon as the superstitions of a | any physiological point; and they all concur in bearformer and less enlightened age-the magical powers ing witness to such facts as the above. In the preof remote antiquity, the oracular system of Greece, sent state of knowledge and opinion, with regard to the evil eye among the Mussulmans, the false mira- animal magnetism, and the sleep occasioned by it, I cles of early opponents of Christianity, the glamour shall say no more at present, but refer the reader to of the modern gypsies, witchcraft, the royal touching the ample details contained in the Parisian report; for scrofula, and second-sight. Let no one be unduly an able translation of which into English has been skeptical on this subject: the most philosophical made by Mr.Colquhoun."-See Philosophy of Sleep. minds in Europe have acknowledged that it is, to the p. 158. extent above described, free from imposture: and if such have so pronounced from observation and experiment, it would be hard, indeed, if common minds, without those means of judgement, were to be allowed to deny the theory, merely because it does not tally with the preconceived ideas of their imperfect understanding. From what source the above very singular statements are derived, we are not prepared to inform. We should indeed have been very much disposed to have been incredulous upon the subject, had we not accidentally fell upon the following page in Macknish's Philosophy of Sleep, which has rather inclined us to believe that these statements are founded in truth. Still as the subject is but little understood, we have not yet sufficient confidence in the matter to hazard a conclusive opinion either on one side or the other. Hear Macknish.-Ed. Fam. Mag. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. Of the simple substances which compose the solid part of the globe. 2. Metals. The The only minerals which remain for us to consider are metals; substances whose brightness, weight, density, ductility, and fusibility, engage the attention of mineralogists and crystallographers; substances which, forming sometimes the representative signs of the products of industry, and sometimes the useful or the formidable instruments of our arts, and our passions ought to be carefully noticed in the description of political states; but they peculiarly deserve attention in the details of physical geography, from the intimate relation which they bear to two great agents of nature, electricity and magnetism. All philosophers should agree in considering the bearings and position of metals, as a subject worthy our most careful and persevering researches. Physical geography indispensably requires that a subject of this nature should constitute one of its departments; and if we According to the report made by a committee of devote to it a certain portion of our pages, our readers the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, animal will perceive the advantages which are thus afforded magnetism appears to have the power of inducing a us, even in the study of political geography. peculiar species of somnambulism. The circumstan- following general results have been established with ces seem so curious, that, even authenticated as they regard to the distribution of metals. 1. They deare by men of undoubted integrity and talent, it is crease in variety and quantity, from the primitive to extremely difficult to place reliance upon them. The the alluvial period. 2. Molybdena, titanium, tin, person who is thrown into the magnetick sleep is said tungsten, cerium, tantalum, uranium, chrome and to acquire a new consciousness, and entirely to forget bismuth, are of the oldest primitive formation; only all the events of his ordinary life. When this sleep faint traces of them in more recent rocks. 3. Arseis dissolved, he gets into his usual state of feeling and nick, cobalt, nickel, silver and copper, occur in the recollection, but forgets every thing that happened oldest primitive, and also in the newer formations. during the sleep; being again magnetized, however, 4. Gold, tellurium, antimony, and manganese, are the remembrance of all that occurred in the previous of a middle age, occurring in the newer primitive, the sleep is brought back to his mind. In one of the transition, and the oldest secondary rocks. 5. Lead, cases above related, the patient, a lady of sixty-four zinc and mercury, are of later date, most abundant years, had an ulcerated cancer in the right. breast. in the secondary formations. 6. Iron is universally She had been magnetized for the purpose of dissolv-distributed from the oldest granite to the newest alluing the tumour, but no other effect was produced than vium. 7. The more crystalline ores abound in the that of throwing her into a species of somnambulick primitive, and are continually decreasing in the newer sleep, in which sensibility was annihilated, while her formations. We shall class metals according to their ideas retained all their clearness. In this state, her specifick gravity. surgeon, Mr. Chapelain, disposed her to submit to an operation, the idea of which she rejected with horrour when awake. Having formally given her consent, she undressed herself, sat down upon a chair, and the diseased glands were carefully and deliberately dissected out, the patient conversing all the time and being perfectly insensible of pain. On awaking, she had no consciousness whatever of having been operated upon; but being informed of the circumstance, and seeing her children around her, she experienced the most lively emotion, which the magnetizer instantly checked by again setting her asleep. These facts appear startling and incredible. I can give no opinion upon the subject from any thing I have seen myself; but the testimony of such men as Cloquet, Georget, and Itard, is not to be received lightly on Platina was unknown or neglected, until 1735, . when it was discovered in Peru by Don Ulloa, a Spanish geometrician. It is now found in considerable abundance in various parts of South America, in Mexico, in Spain, and in Russia. It is brought to us in little grains, mixed with gold dust, ferruginous sand, and some particles of mercury. It usually contains fine extraneous minerals, namely, Palladium, Rhodium, Iridium, and Osmium. It is the least fusible of all the metals. The strongest heat of our furnaces cannot melt it; it is consequently manufactured only by beating and welding. There are but one or two establishments in the world where it is manufactured from the natural state, and those we believe are in France. Nearly all that we use in this country is first obtained in South America and carried to France, where it is manufactured into of these metals to pierce through theirs. They bars or sheets, from whence it is brought to our mar- ought, on the other hand, to be more thin, because ket, and here it now sells for about $7.50 per ounce. the white light which they reflect, answers to a It is used for crucibles, and in the nicest mathemat-greater degree of tenuity, than the yellow of gold or ical instruments where it is necessary to guard copper. According to the experiments of Brisson, against dilatation or contraction from the variations of temperature, but chiefly by dentists. In Russia it is used in the coinage. and the calculations of Hany, the specifick gravity of a mixture of gold and copper, exceeds the sum of the specifick gravities of the two metals when Gold is found only in its native state, that is to separate about 1-11. On the contrary, the specifick say, almost pure. It exists in all kinds of earth. It gravity of a mixture of silver and copper, is less is also proved by the experiments of various chym- than the total of the specifick gravities of the two ists, that there are particles of gold existing in vege-metals, by about 1-18. When dissolved in nitrick tables. Werner assures us, that native gold has acid, silver crystallizes under a kind of vegetable or always been found in half petrified wood. It is arborescent form, producing what is called the tree found in various countries in the north of Europe, of Diana. Silver, though less rare than gold, has in nearly all the larger of the East India islands, in been preferred to that metal, as a representative of various parts of Africa, in several of the Southern value; the resistance which it opposes to the action States of our own country, but most abundantly in of the air and humidity; its brilliant whiteness, and the interiour of South America. Near Akim, how-its malleability, render it applicable to a multiplicity ever, on the coast of Guinea, one person, we are of purposes both useful and ornamental. told, may pick up ten ounces a day. Sulphuret of silver, is silver combined with about 4-7 of sulphur. Antimonial sulphuretted silver is commonly called red silver; it bears a lively red colour. almost always contains enough to preserve it in the fluid state. The cold of Siberia, however, and of Northern Russia, sometimes converts it into the solid form, which has been erroneously considered as congelation; it is then almost as malleable as tin, and admits of being extended into very thin sheets. It possesses, then, the essential qualities of metals, and approaches the nature of those that are most perfect Mercury amalgamates with almost all metallick substances, but chiefly with gold, silver, tin and bismuth. The silvering of glass is effected by an amalgam of mercury and tin. This metal is found only in small portions, and at great distances-it seems to fail in countries in the vicinity of the artick pole. Lead, a substance of very dense structure but ex The valuable qualities of gold render it worthy of the rank which has been assigned to it among metals. Less brilliant than platina, it has a colour more agreeable to the eye. Thus, the poets have Native mercury is generally found in brilliant and not failed to give golden locks to Apollo; a throne moveable globules, disseminated in clayey schist, in of gold to Jupiter; Vulcan employs gold to forge a marl, in quartz, and in primitive limestone. It rebuckler for Achilles; in short, in the form of an ad-quires so little heat for its fusion, that the atmosphere jective the words gold and beauty were synonymous among the Greeks. Tractable in the hands of art, from its great ductility, gold assumes every form which we wish it to acquire. The goldsmith, the jeweller, the embroiderer, and the gilder, employ it with equal facility. It is capable of the most astonishing superficial extension, thus making up in some measure, for its scarceness, by its ductility. A quantity of one grain's weight, can be beaten out into a sheet, the surface of which will cover fifty square inches, and when used in the gilding of silver wire, its extension is nearly sixteen times greater. A thread of gold 1 10 of an inch in diameter can support a weight of five hundred pounds. Gold is very soft and when coined into money, must be mixed with copper, which gives it a reddish tinge.tremely deficient in point of hardness, elasticity, and Native silver is rarely found pure in the bosom of the earth; it is sometimes mixed with copper and iron, and sometimes with gold, but more frequently with arsenick. Silver is found in quartz, limestone, sulphuretted zinc, and sometimes in petro silex; it is rarely to be met with in granite rocks. It exists in grains, in a thread-like form, in thin laminæ, in ramifications, in octahedral crystals, and sometimes in very considerable masses. It abounds in Mexico, is found in South America, Siberia, Saxony, Norway, and in Germany. Next to gold and platina, silver is the most unalterable of the metals-its surface only blackens in those places where there are sulphureous and inflammable vapours. It is remarkable that silver, alloyed with a considerable portion of gold or copper, preserves its white colour; whilst a small quantity of silver or copper, mixed with gold, changes very sensibly the colour of this latter metal. This phenomenon, common to all white metals, made Newton imagine, that the particles of white metals have much more surface than those of yellow metals, and that they are also very opaque; so that they cover the gold and copper, without permitting the colour even ductility, claims the rank next to mercury. It is, however, of great utility in its metallick state; conduit pipes, balls and shot, and other plain and coarse implements are made of it. It gives to glass an unctuosity and softness which render it susceptible of being easily cut and polished; and it is to the red oxide of lead that the glass called flint glass, owes the quality which renders it so valuable for the construction of the object glasses of achromatick telescopes,-the quality of divesting the images of those colours, with which they appear to be edged when we view them through a common telescope. The oxides of lead furnish a variety of colours both to the palette of the painter, and the toilet of the modern Lais. Lead is generally found mineralized by sulphur forming an ore commonly called galena, which is almost always mixed with iron, with antimony and especially with silver. It is found in almost every part of Europe, and in great abundance in the western and south-western parts of the United States. Carbonate of lead, or mineral white lead, is an oxide mineralized by carbonick acid, and often accompa nies galena. Molybdate of lead, or the oxide min eralized by molybdick acid, is found in Carinthia; it | Iron is profusely distributed throughout nature. generally bears the name of yellow-lead. The red It enters either as a colouring or a combining princilead of Barezof in Siberia is mineralized by the ple into a great number of mineral substances; it chromick acid. is a stranger neither to vegetables, whose tints it Nickel is not a very ductile metal; it is of no use enlivens, nor to animals, upon whom it exerts a salin the arts, but it possesses some magnetick proper-utary influence. As an insulated substance, it is ties. It generally accompanies cobalt, an equally found in almost every part of the world; it is howmagnetick substance; these two metals, of a nature ever, more common, or at least, accessible to our nearly allied to that of iron, and often containing researches in the northern temperate zone, particuparticles of it, seem to occur most plentifully in the larly towards the northern part of it. As nature north. Nickel is also an invariable constituent of produces it, it is very different from that whose apmeteorick stones, and the masses of native iron pearance and use are so familiar to us. It is usually nothing but an earthy mass, a dirty and impure rust; Native copper is not uncommon. It occurs in and even when iron presents itself to us in the mine large amorphous masses in some parts of the United with metallick brightness, it is still very far from States, and is sometimes found in octahedral crys-possessing the qualities required for the multiplicity tals, or in forms allied to the octahedron. The me-of uses to which it can be applied. While man tallick copper of commerce is extracted chiefly from the native sulphuret. tormed on the earth's surface. need only purify gold, he must, if the expression be allowed, create iron. This metal is generally susCopper is distinguished from all other metals, tita- ceptible of three different states. What is called nium excepted, by having a red colour. It receives cast or pig iron, is the metal after its first fusion, dea considerable lustre by polishing. Its density is prived of more or less of its oxygen, and combined increased by hammering. It is both ductile and with a part of the carbon with which it came in malleable, and in tenacity is inferiour only to iron. contact in the casting furnace. Cast iron is rendered It is hard and elastick, and consequently sonorous. malleable by exposure in a reverberatory furnace to In fusibility it stands between silver and gold. Ex- the combined action of air and intense heat; though posed to the air, or to damp, it is very soon covered it is generally supposed to be peculiar to iron, that with that rust known under the name of verdigris, of the two properties of fusibility, and ductility which is one of the most active poisons. When under the hammer, it can possess the one only at the melted and refined, it is called purified or rose cop- expense of the other. After the process to render per, which is less dense than native copper. What it ductile, iron is found in the greatest state of purity we call yellow copper, or brass, is a compound of to which art can bring it. It is then exposed to copper and zinc, which is obtained by the cementa- the action of a large hammer, whose redoubled tion of copper with calamine, and which, from being strokes, by bringing the metallick particles into less subject to rust, furnishes the watchmaker, the closer contact, unite them more perfectly together, mechanical philosopher, and the geometrician, with and render the iron ductile. It is then called forged so many instruments of general use, exquisitely del- iron. In this new state it is no longer fusible; and icate in their workmanship, and of great durability. the most violent heat of our furnaces can at most But if the two metals are directly united by fusion, only soften it, and convert it into a kind of paste. the mixture takes the names of pinchbeck, tomback, Forged iron, placed in contact with carbonaceous and gold of Manheim. Bronze is made by uniting substances, and again softened by the action of fire, a certain quantity of tin with copper; it is more till it enters into combination with these substances, elastick and sonorous than pure copper. Cannons or rather with the carbon which they contain, is conand many statues are made of bronze. Copper is verted into steel. The operation of tempering which found in abundance throughout the northern and steel undergoes does not change its nature, it only southern extremities of the globe, but disappears in varies the arrangement and aggregation of its partithe vicinity of the equator. cles; it augments at once its hardness, its brittleCobalt is a brittle metal, of a reddish gray colour,ness, and its volume, and gives it a coarser grain and weak metallick lustre. White cobalt is fre- than that of steel not tempered. Thus the differquently found in veins in some of the secondary mountains of the interiour of Europe. Arsenical cobalt exists only in the primitive rocks, and is accompanied by quartz and primitive limestone. This mineral makes a fine blue glass, called smalt, which, in a pulverized state, is known under the name of Saxon blue. The tin of commerce, known by the names of block and grain tin, is procured from the native oxide by means of heat and charcoal. The best grain tin is almost chymically pure, containing according to Dr. Thomson, very minute quantities of copper and iron, and occasionally of arsenick. Tin has a white colour, and a lustre resembling that of silver. In ductility and tenacity it is inferiour to several metals. When heated to whiteness, it takes fire and burns with a white flame. It is found in England, Saxony and Bohemia, in the East Indies, and in small quantities in Africa and South America. ence between cast iron, forged iron, and steel, depends on two principles, namely, oxygen and carbon: their union constitutes cast iron; the absence of both, at least in a perceptible quantity, characterizes forged iron; and in steel, carbon exists alone without oxygen. Vitriol of iron is nothing else than the sulphate of iron, and is of great service in dying; it is used as the principle of black colour, from the property which gall nuts and other astringent vegetables possess, of precipitating iron contained in the vitriol, under the form of black particles of extreme fineness. Emery is an oxide of iron, intimately united with alumina and silex. This substance is valuable in the arts, on account of its great hardness. By grinding it in steel mills, it is reduced to a powder whose sharp and hard particles can, by the application of friction, give a polish to all existing substances, except the diamond. Zinc, which forms the connecting link between tecture that bear national characteristicks, viz.: the the ductile metals, and those which are not so, is ob- Grecian and Roman, the Egyptian, and the Hindoo. tained either from calamine, the native carbonate of The first is generally made to consist of five orders, zinc, or from the native sulphuret, the zinc blende of mineralogists. It has a strong metallick lustre, and namely, Doric, Tuscan, Ionic, Composite and a bluish white colour. It is a hard metal, being Corinthian. The Egyptian, and Hindoo are not so acted on by the file with difficulty; but it is both mal- definitely arranged, but consist of a great variety of leable and ductile. Heated to full redness in a cov- styles. We intend to introduce now a few speciered crucible, it burns into flame as soon as the cover is removed, and burns with a brilliant white light. mens only of the different styles by way of contrastZinc is found in England, in various parts of nor- ing them, and describe the most ancient first. The thern Europe, and in India. Grecian and Roman styles, which our architects principally adopt we shall more particularly describe at a future time. Bismuth, from its great fusibility, is used for alloys with various other metals; it is found in the primitive mountains, and occurs attached to jasper. It is used in the composition of printers' types, soft solder, &c. It may be fused in the flame of a candle; alloyed with lead and tin in certain proportions, it melts in boiling water. It has a reddish white colour, and considerable lustre. Arsenick serves to mineralize a great number of metals; rubbed or warmed, it discovers itself by the smell of garlick, which it emits. It is a very brittle metal, of a strong metallick lustre, and of a steel gray colour. The oxide of arsenick, under the form of a white powder, constitutes one of the most violent poisons. Molybdenum is of ancient formation-small masses of it are found in various portions of northern Europe It is a brittle metal, very infusible, and of a white colour. Its properties are imperfectly known. Manganese is a colouring principle very extensively distributed in nature. It is that which gives a violet hue to the crystals of fluate of lime. It is a hard brittle metal, of a grayish white colour, and granular texture. Antimony, once celebrated in the laboratories of the alchymists, who hoped to discover in it the philosopher's stone, is now employed with success in the composition of various medicines, in casting types, and as an alloy with tin to form what is called prince's metal. It is found native in quartz and primitive limestone; sulphuretted or gray in the primitive mountains, and often united with galena. It is brittle, of a bluish gray colour and considerable lustre. Titanium is found in a state of red oxide, under the form of a ferruginous stone, and united with silex and lime. It is found in minute crystals, so hard that they scratch a polished surface of rock crystal. Tellurium, uranium, scheelin, chrome which colours the emerald, cerium, columbium insoluble in acids and found in the United States, and several other metals, have not yet acquired sufficient importance to claim our attention at present. We have thus given a tolerably full catalogue of the principal simple substances which compose the solid part of the globe. ARCHITECTURE. As architecture is rapidly assuming the dignity of a science in our country it may be gratifying to our readers to possess a general idea, at least, of the different forms and characteristicks of the various orders. There are generally three styles of archi GRECIAN AND ROMAN COLUMNS. Tuscan. Ionic. Composite. Corinthian. Doric. three styles, and partakes in a great degree of the The Hindoo columns are much lighter in form and more covered with minute ornaments than the Egyptian, while the Grecian and Roman orders are distinguished from both; from the Egyptian by their more slender and graceful appearance, and from the Hindoo by their greater simplicity and ornament. The different ornaments and carvings on the Egyptian columns were originally painted of various colours, and these colours were all what are called mineral colours; that is, they were prepared from metals, earths, and other mineral substances: and so advanced must the Egyptians have been in chymistry, that although these colours have been, in some instances, exposed to the air for nearly three thousand years, they are still as bright and perfect as if they had been only lately applied. To account for the massive form of the Egyptian columns, we must remember that many of their temples were not built, but absolutely excavated from the solid rock; and |