florins in value. The essays must be written either in Dutch, Latin, French, or English A machine capable of being set in motion, and producing a powerful effect, without either the intervention of any combustible, the action of any current of water or of air, or the exertion of animal strength, but possessing within itself the inexhaustible principle of motion, would doubtless prove of great uti lity to mankind. Such is that of which M. Dodemant, professor of mathematics at Lyons, announces himself the inventor. At his request the prefect has directed two persons, M. Carron, chief engineer of the department, and M. Moller, professor of natural philosophy, to examine this machine. A proces-verbal of the municipa. lity of Lille, in the department of Vaucluse, has confirmed the success of a plantation of indigo in the open field, in a farm belonging to M. Icard de Bataglini. It is said, in the proces-verbal, that after an attentive examination of the indigo, the produce of this trial, the commissioners gave it as their opinion, that this valuable plant might be naturalized in the department, and at some future period become a principal source of its wealth. The following decree has been issued by his catholic majesty the king of Spain, on the occasion of some experiments made at Carthagena, with respect to the efficacy of anti-contagious fumigations. "Don F. de Borja, commander in chief at Carthagena, having made known to the king, in different reports, the important services performed by don Michel Cabanellas, during the prevalence of the contagious distemper which raged in that place, his catholic majesty was particularly struck with the importance of the experiment made by him in one of the hospitals of the said city, where he shut himself up with fifty persons, in order to prove the efficacy of the acid fumigations; and actually slept with his companions, including two of his own children, in the beds where many patients had recently failen victims to this terrible disease, without employing any other preservative means than the mineral acid fumigations, as directed by M. Guyton His catholic majesty, moreover, learned with the most unfeigned satisfaction, that the result of the experiment was so fortunate that the fifty-one persons, after having been strictly confined in this lazaretto, had come out of it in a state of perfect health. In consequence, and in order to afford a proof of his royal munificence, his catholic majesty has remitted to each of the galley-slaves who voluntarily sub nitted to this experiment (not having previously undergone an attack of the yellow fever) one year of the time they were sentenced to remain in chains; and he farther caused his approbation of their conduct to be notified to them by his captain general. To don Michel Cabanellas his catholic majesty grants the title and honours of physician to his majesty's household, with an annual salary of 24,000 reals, to be paid monthly from the funds of the community of Carthagena; at the same time is conferred on him a right of voting in the municipal body of that city, in the same manner as if he had been a natural-born citizen. The king, besides, charges himself with providing for his two children, whose lives, like his own, were exposed for the interest of the state and of humanity. It is well known that when a current of inflammable air, projected by a pipe only a few lines in drumeter, is burned under a glass tube, you hear certain harmonious, but very shrill sounds, which perfectly resemble those of the harmonica. An Italian philosopher has recently observed an effect which bears a great analogy to this phenomenon. Melting, at the lamp of an ena neller, a glass tube wet in the inside, to blow with it the bulb of a thermometer, it emitted a sound which lasted several sec nds, constantly increasing in loudness, but which could be stopped by closing with the |