manganese, and platinum; for we find the deutoxide of these metals combine not with 1 but with 2 integrant particles of sulphuric acid. Hence it is probable that the sulphate of iron given in the table does not exist. If we examine the notes under the table of the composition of the salts it will be seen that none of the other six exceptions to the canon of Berzelius can be considered as valid; because they are either stated from mere theory, or they do not agree with the analyses of the salts in question hitherto published. Upon the whole, then, the sulphates furnish one decisive exception to Berzelius's canon. This canon appears to me at present entirely empyrical. I cannot see any sound reason (different from the result of analyses) that should lead us to adopt it. Hence the knowledge of this exception disposes me at present to reject it; but we shall be able to judge with more correctness after we have examined a few more genera of salts, especially the nitrates, upon the analysis of which Berzelius seems to me to have founded it. (To be continued.) ARTICLE XII. Magnetical Observations at Hackney Wick. By Col. Beaufoy, Magnetical Observations. Latitude 51° 32′ 40′′ North. Longitude West in Time 6" 82 TO Sept. 18h 50′ 24° 17′ 09" 2h 33' 24° 21' 30" Ditto 28 50 24 15 17 In deducing the mean variation for the month of August the observations made on the 1st are rejected, on account of their differing so much from the others. On the 6th September the wind blew very hard from the S.W. and the needles at intervals vibrated from four to five minutes. Does not, therefore, the unsteadiness of the wind arise partly from clectricity? It is not every gust of wind that will produce a vibratory motion. Rain fallen { 0-597 inches. Between noon of the 1st Aug. ? ARTICLE XIII. Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. IMPERIAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. Account of the Labours of the French Institute for 1812. (Continued from p. 76.) ZOOLOGY, ANATOMY, AND ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. M. le Chevalier Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, who has examined at various intervals the numerous family of bats, and has made us acquainted with so many interesting species, proposes to give a general table of them. He has prefaced this undertaking with a dissertation on the rank which these singular animals ought to hold among the mammalia. They were long considered as intermediate between quadrupeds and birds. It is equally obvious that they hold an intermediate place between the quadrumania and carnivorous animals. Among the numerous arrangements proposed by naturalists, there are some, as that of Linnæus in his last editions, and that of Brisson, in which the bats are classed along with the quadrumania; in others, as that of Linnæus in his first editions, and that of Klein, they are placed with the small carnivorous animals, or eaters of insects, as the mole and the hedgehog. Some, as Storr and Cuvier, place them at the head of carnivorous animals, before the insect eaters just mentioned, and immediately after the quadrumania; with this difference, however, that Cuvier distinguishes them more particularly, and makes a subdivision of them. Others, as Ray, Blumenbach, Lacepede, and lliger, constitute them a separate order; and this order is placed by Ray and by Lacepede in some measure out of the arrangement. By Blumenbach between the quadrumania and the other inguicula, at the head of which this naturalist places the rongeurs. Finally, M. Iliger places them before the carnivorous animals, at the head of which are placed, as in the arrangement of Cuvier, the devourers of insects. It is easy to see that all these combinations will depend upon those organs to which each naturalist has paid the greatest attention. Those who have chiefly attended to the skeleton, to the intestines, to the organization of the feet, to the form of the nails, to the grinders, have considered the bats as analogous to carnivorous animals (and this is the opinion at present most followed); while those who have attended only to the fore-teeth, to the position of the mamma, to the hanging penis, have considered them as analogous to the quadrumania. M. Geoffroy, in the work of which we have spoken, insists more than usual upon these last relations, to which he thinks sufficient attention has not been paid. He shows particularly that the singular elongation of the anterior extremities, the general tendency of the skin to become excessively wide, and the peculiar properties which are the consequence of this in the bats, both with respect to their sensations and motions, require us to place these mammalia in a separate order; while, at the same time, their striking resemblance to the quadrumania, and to the carnivorous animals, requires that this order should be placed between them. We may look with interest to the subdivision of this order, and to the history of the species, which M. Geoffroy has promised. M. de la Mark, employed at the Museum of Natural History in teaching every thing which concerns the animals destitute of vertebræ, published, some years ago, the work which serves as a basis to his course. He explains in it, according to his own method, the classes, orders, and genera, of these numerous animals but as travellers have since discovered many genera and species, as anatomists have more completely explained the structure, and as the meditations of la Mark on the subject have made him discover various new relations among these animals, he has published an abridged table of his course, after his method in its most perfect state, in which he satisfies himself with giving the characters of the greater divisions, and simply enumerating the names of the genera. He follows in their arrangement the degrees of complicateness, beginning with the most simple animals. Supposing that those which have no visible nerves only move in consequence of their irritability, he calls them apathic animals. He gives the name of sensible animals to the other animals without vertebræ, and of intelligent animals to those which have vertebræ. To his old classes, now well known to naturalists, he adds the cirrhipeda, which include the glands-de mer, and other analogous animals, and which he places between his annelides and his mollusca; that of the epizoaines, or intestinal worms, which he places among his apathic animals; and the infusoria, or microscopic animals without visible mouth or intestines. He leaves the echinodermes in his radiaires, and among the apathic animals, with a greater degree of simplicity than the intestinal worms. We regret that we have not room to notice the other changes introduced by M. de la Mark into his orders, nor the numerous additions which he has made to the list of genera; but naturalists will not fail to look for them in the work itself. Notwithstanding the success of the anatomical investigations of animals without vertebræ for several years back, there still remained a family in which the fundamental organs were not well known. It is the family called echinodermes, which comprehends the star-fish, and other analogous genera. The Class having proposed a prize for the perfecting of this branch of comparative anatomy, it was gained by M. Tiedeman, Professor in the University of Landshut. The memoir of this skilful anatomist makes us accurately acquainted, for the first time, with many particulars respecting the organization of these singular animals. A species of circulation is easily observed between their organs of digestion and those of respiration, without, however, offering a complete double circle. Nor can the branches be followed in the exterior organs, nor in those of motion. It appears even, according to M. Tiedeman, that a quite different vascular system is distributed to those numerous peduncles which in these animals serve for instruments of locomotion. The organs of respiration differ much in different genera. In the holothuria they represent hollow trees, whose branches fill and empty themselves with water from without, and are interlaced with a vascular net. In the stars and urchins the water penetrates immediately into the cavity of the body, and moistens all the parts of it. This beautiful work, accompanied by plates exquisitely finished by M. Münz, Doctor of Medicine, appeared to the Class to deserve the prize, by the number of new facts well authenticated which it presents, and by the great progress which it has made to the intimate knowledge of the echinodermes, though it has not completely answered the question proposed relative to their circulation. A family much more simple in its organization than the echinodermes, but much more numerous in species, namely, the corals, and other animals composed of a solid basis, has been particularly studied by M. Lamouroux, both with respect to the species and the methodical arrangement. This naturalist has made a great collection of those whose basis is not stony, and which present forms so agreeable, and often so singular; and comparing with much care the form, the mutual position, of the cells from which the polypi issue, and all the other visible differences of these animals, he proposes to add 28 new genera. This is an important work for the perfecting of the system of animals; but it does not, from its nature, admit of an abridged analysis. We are anxious for its speedy publication. M. Cuvier, proposing soon to begin printing the great book on comparative anatomy with which he has been occupied for so many years, has presented to the Class a table of the divisions according to which the animal kingdom will be distributed in that work. Naturalists have been long struck with the great differences which separate animals without vertebræ from each other, while animals with vertebræ resemble each other in so VOL. II. N° IV. U |