IF you consider the following observations on flax-steeping worthy of a place in your valuable Magazine, I will thank you to insert them. They are the substance of answers furnished by me to inquiries made upon that subject by G. Thomson, Esq. of the Trustees Office, Edinburgh.

When in Dumbartonshire in 1801, reducing to practice the process of bleaching by steam, I had a few spindles of yarn given to me to prepare for weaving. There was, in the sleekness of the thread, something that attracted my attention. Having soaked it over night in warm water to prepare it for steaming, I was much surprised at the change of colour, and the quantity of colouring matter dissolved in the water. It was then washed, wrung, and soaked in a weak alkaline ley, and laid for steaming over some brown linens. After steaming the usual time, the covers were taken off. The yarn was found to have attained a degree of whiteness I never had before observed under similar circumstances. It was washed in the stream so long as any colouring matter came from it, and laid to the grass for two days. I remember well the colour was such as to impress me with a strong belief that some great and important discovery might be the result of accurately following up the process this flax had gone through; and I immediately made inquiry of the lady to whom the yarn belonged, who informed me she had it from a person she named, in the neighbourhood: to this individual I made the same application, and traced the yarn to have been purchased at a Kilmarnock fair.

Here the matter rested till the next season of lint pulling. I had a particular wish to trace, if possible, the matter to its source, and conceived the best plan would be to traverse that part of the country, from Stirling towards Kilmarnock. My time was far too limited; but I saw as much as to satisfy myself that the secret with regard to the bleaching, lay entirely in pulling the flax before it was too ripe; and I also found that this great advantage might again be lost by improper watering.

I saw the flax in all its stages, from the pulling to the drying after watering; and upon inquiry I uniformly found the greenest pulled was intended for the finest purposes, and that the whitest flax, after drying, had been watered in the burn. They were very particular in watering, and did not allow it to remain so long in the water as I had been led to believe necessary, from the practice here; nor did they spread it on the grass

after watering, as is the mode in this quar ter, but dried it all from the water, by what is termed hutting.

As bleaching alone was my object, my inquiries respecting the different shades of colour after watering were very particular; and I uniformly found that the white flas had been watered in the burn, and the darkcoloured in ponds dug where water could be most conveniently obtained. When I mention a burn, it must be understood to be a stream so small as to require a dam being necessary to receive the water into a temporary pond to cover the flax.

The succession of clean water, I conceive, prevents the deposition of colouring principles, to be hereafter mentioned, by washing or carrying them away, after being extracted from the flax, which I had afterwards an opportunity of proving, in a pond so constructed, which produced remarkably white flax, while the same flax, from several stagnant ponds dug in the same ground, filled with water from the same spring, was very dark in the colour.

In following up these observations, my situation in life did not then admit of experiments to the extent the importance of the subject would have required. I shall, however, narrate these, so far as they extended. The result satisfied me, that the watering of flax must vary with local circumstances, and every where depend on the means afforded by springs, streams, moss, or marsh, that may be in the neighbourhood of the flax-field, so long as the present mode of culture is followed; and the colour of the flax after watering very much depend on the following causes:

The ripeness of the flax before pulling. The state of putridity of the stagnant water.

The minerals the water may contain. Whether it is steeped in a pond dug, or one formed by damming a small stream or rill. Or, if a succession of parcels of flax (which is sometimes the case) be watered in the same pond, where every succeeding parcel must partake of the contaminating dye produced by the fermentation of the former.

In the course of my observations, I found the quantity and solubility of the colouring matter in proportion to the degree of ripeness; and in the ripest, on a principle I never till then knew to have an existence in flax, viz. iron, which may be said to abound in ripe flax.

In unripe flax I found the colouring matter soluble in water; but this matter became less and less soluble, till the water made little or no impression upon it. The time necessary for flax to macerate must in some measure depend on the weather, but more on the state of ripeness than most practitioners seem to be aware of.

must have been a body of immense size; for its distance was, manifestly, very considerable.

Its descent, many imagined, was in a right line perpendicular to the horizon. But this could not have been. It probably fell in a parabolic curve, or in a figure approaching such a curve. Its velocity we are unable correctly to compute. The celerity of its movement was so great, that no person, with whom we have conversed, has ventured to estimate the length of time, during which it was visible. It could not have been, at most, more than a very few seconds.

We have heard its appearance compared to that of iron in a furnace, the instant it is beginning to fuse. Some say, its light was somewhat different from that afforded by melting iron, but that it was more brilliant." Three explosions took place, while the meteor was in the heavens. The report was so loud as to be heard by most of the people in this village. The houses were jarred as they are by a slight earthquake. The sound was thought, by some, to resemble that of heavy thunder. By others it was compared to the noise of three cannon discharged in quick succession.

A little before the explosions occurred, or rather before the report was heard, a brisk scintillation, or sparkling, of the meteor was observed. Particles proceeded from the body, and continued luminous till they had arrived at considerable distance from it, but gradually growing less and less vivid, till they disappeared. Many individuals saw the light, who did not see the meteor.

A gentleman belonging to Whiting, states, that he witnessed the phenomenon, during its passage from near the zenith, till it was totally extinguished; that he saw it three times, violently agitated, so, to use his own language, as to turn over;" that, at each agitation, or leap, its bulk diminished, and that shortly after the third, the luminary wholly disappeared; that, at the time of these agitations, an unusual quantity of light was emitted, and that, in about fifteen minutes, as he believed, after the agitations, he heard three distinct reports. It was proba bly the light sent forth at the second explosion, which was observed by the gentleman mentioned, who was standing in his garden. He also heard the report, but imagined, that not more than three minutes intervened be tween the flash and the time the sound reached his ear. Other gentlemen of this village suppose, that the intervening time could not have been short of five minutes.

Though the motion of this, as well as all other meteors, is rapid (and they have been seen to move one thousand miles in a minute,) it is well known that the motion of sound is comparatively slow, passing over less than thirteen miles in a minute. Supposing the intervening time to have been five minutes, the meteor, when it exploded, must have been about sixty-five miles distant from this place. If the interval was

fifteen minutes, its distance must have been about two hundred miles.

We cannot doubt, that, at the moment of the above mentioned agitations, stones, denominated meteoric, were projected from the principal mass, and precipitated to the earth. Such, we believe, is universally the fact with meteors, which explode in the atmosphere. These stones are usually of a globular form, and always covered with a black or deep brown incrustation, composed chiefly of iron. The internal part of the mass is of a grayish colour, and of a coarse, granular texture. Chemical analysis has shown, they are made up principally of iron, sulphur, magnesia, clay, lime, and silex. These stones have fallen in almost every part of the globe, and of all sizes, from that of a pea, to that of a body of several yards in diameter. But one instance of this kind has, to my knowledge, occurred in New-Eng land. This is th meteor, which burst over the town of We on, in Connecticut, in 1807; an excellent account of which was given to the public by Professors Siliman and Kingsley. The body of it was_computed to have been not less than twelve or thirteen hundred feet in diameter.

If stones fell from the body, which we have hastily and very superficially described, we are anxious to know where they fell. We hope to hear something on this subject from our friends in the eastern part of this state, or in New-Hampshire. Should we obtain any additional information, which is interesting, relative to this extraordinary celestial visitor, we shall not fail to communicate it to the public. The above is taken from the mouths of those who witnessed the phenomenon. F. HALL.

In the connexion with the above account of professor Hall, we extract the following description of a similar phenomenon that

occurred in Ireland.

I send you a copy of a letter which I have received from a gentleman of the highest respectability, who was an eye-witness to one of the most remarkable showers of meteoric stones on record. This shower fell in the county of Limerick.

The information with which I present you, was in answer to the following queries, which George Tuthill, Esq. of this city was good enough to transmit to his friend in Limerick, soon after the event occurred.

1. Have any persons seen the stones in the act of falling?

2. How soon after the large stones fell were they discovered? and were they hot?

3. Was the fall accompanied by thunder and lightning; and if so, was there but one clap and one flash, or how many?

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4. What was the state of the weather? 5. What is the shape of the larger stones? 6. Have smaller stones fallen at the same time, and at what distance were they found from the larger ones?

7. Were there appearances of recent frac tures on the surface of the large masses; and if so, whether those fractures corresponded in shape and number with the small fragments?

In consequence of the foregoing questions, I received the following letter: "Limerick.

"Sir,-Friday morning, the 10th of September 1813, being very calm and serene, and the sky clear, about nine o'clock a cloud appeared in the east, and very soon after I heard eleven distinct reports, appearing to proceed from thence, somewhat resembling the discharge of heavy artillery. Immediately after this, followed a considerable noise, not unlike the beating of a large drum, which was succeeded by an uproar resembling the continued discharge of musquetry in line. The sky above the place whence this noise appeared to issue, became darkened, and very much disturbed, making a hissing noise; and from thence appeared to issue with great violence, different masses of matter, which directed their course with great velocity in a horizontal direction towards the west. One of these was observed to descend; it fell to the earth, and sunk into it more than a foot and a half, on the lands of Scagh in the neighborhood of Pobuck's Well, in the county of Limerick. It was immediately dug up; and I have been informed by those who were present, and on whom I could rely, that it was then warm, and had a sulphurous smell. It weighed about seventeen pounds, and had no appearance of having been fractured in any part, for the whole of its surface was uniformly smooth and black, as if affected by sulphur or gunpowder. Six or seven more of the same kind of masses, but smaller, and fractured, as if shattered from each other, or from larger ones, descended at the same time, with great velocity, in different places, between the lands of Scagh and the village of Adare. One more very large mass passed with great rapidity and considerable noise at a small distance from me; it came to the ground on the lands of Brasky, and penetrated a very hard and dry earth, about two feet. This was not taken up for two days; it appeared to be fractured in many places, and weighed about sixty-five pounds! Its shape was rather round, but irregular: it cannot be ascertained whether the small fragments which came down at the same time corresponded with the fractures of this large stone in shape or number; but the unfractured part of the surface has the same appearance as the one first mentioned. There fell also, at the same time, on the lands of Faha, another stone, which does not appear to have been part of, or separated from, any other mass: its skin is smooth and VOL. III.-No. IV.

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blackish, of the same appearance with the first mentioned, and weighed above twentyfour pounds. Its shape is very irregular. This stone is in my possession, and for its volume is very heavy.

"There was no flash of lightning at the time of, or immediately before or after, the explosion; the day continued very calm and serene; was rather close and sultry, and without wind or rain. It is about three miles in direct line from the lands of Brasky, where the very large stone descended, to the place where the small ones fell in Adare, and all the others fell intermediately; but they appeared to descend horizontally, and as if discharged from a bomb and scattered in the air. "I am, sir,

"Your obedient servant, SAM. MAXWELL.

"WILLIAM HIGGINS, Esq.

"Dublin Society-House."

There is no phenomenon in nature so strange or so difficult to be accounted for, as the existence of meteoric stones in the

atmosphere, and the circumstances attending their motion and descent to the earth. The fiery meteors which deposit them are often seen at a considerable height above the clouds, moving in a horizontal direction with great velocity, but gradually approaching towards the earth. When they reach within a certain distance of it, or when they meet with clouds, the phenomena of thunder and lightning are produced, the ignition ceases, and the stones come down, most frequently shattered into masses of different sizes, with the effects of fusion, without ex ception, on their surface, the fractured parts excepted, although internally they exhibit no such appearance.

In whatever part of the world those stones are found, they exhibit very nearly the same appearance as to colour, texture, fracture, &c. and on analysis give the same ingredients, sometimes varying very little in their proportions.

The stone which fell a few years ago in the county of Tipperary, and which weighed seven pounds and a half, was found by my analysis to consist of the same substances with many which had fallen on different parts of the globe, according to the analyses of Mr. Howard.

The following are the constituents of those stones, viz.

Silex in large quantities.

Magnesia.

Iron in its metallic state.
Nickel in small proportions.
Sulphur and oxide of iron,

As no other mineral substance hitherto discovered on our globe consists of the above ingredients, we must consider them as foreigners. Some philosophers suppose that they are projected from the volcanoes of the moon; that they are projected from the earth by means of volcanoes-that they are produced in the atmosphere by the gradual accumulation of minute and invi ible atoms,

&c. But as these speculations are inconsistent with sound philosophy, or even with plausible hypotheses, I shall drop the subject

here.

It is supposed by Cladini that they never belonged to any planet, and that they were opaque wandering masses, before they reached the confines of our atmosphere. This, certainly, is the most rational mode of accounting for their presence in the situation in which we first behold them in the atmosphere.

However, to account for their becoming luminous or red hot, when they descend into the upper regions of our atmosphere, regions of eternal frost, has been a desideratum with mc, and engaged much of my attention some time past.

These masses, like all other ponderable materials, contain specific heat round their atoms and particles; in moving through the atmosphere they collect electricity; and this continues increasing, as there is no other solid matter in those upper regions to prevent its accumulation.* When they acquire a sufficient quantity of electric matter, the entire or a portion of their specific heat is liberated, and much of it is thrown on their surface; this gives the luminous appearance: as they contain much iron and sulphur, a portion of oxygen unites to their external parts. The degree of heat produced by these different circumstances will account for the superficial fused crust which invariably sur rounds these substances. It is probable also, that a quantity of electricity collects round those masses, so as to form a considerable and dense atmosphere, and that this electric atmosphere as they move along, keeps the air in contact with them in a constant blaze. These electric stones in descending towards the earth, when they meet a cloud comparatively negative, lose a portion of their electricity; which bursting forth with great vehemence exhibits the phenomena of thunder and lightning; at the same time that they are most commonly shattered into pieces. ́So soon as this takes place, their luminous appearance ceases, their specific heat resumes its former station, and they are precipitated to the earth, still retaining a considerable degree of heat. The stone that fell in the county of Tipperary could not be touched with the hand some time after its descent.

It is somewhat strange that those meteors should be found to move from E. to W. which is contrary to the motions of the earth; unless it had been occasioned by the electrical explosion, which might have scattered the stones in every direction by its violence. It is impossible that such explosions could be produced but by means of electrici

ty; therefore, it appears rather singular that they should not be accompanied with lightring, which is generally the case; but probably the opacity or darkness of the clouds, during the fall in the county of Limerick, rendered it invisible. I am, sir,

Your very humble servant,

W. HIGGINS.

From the Philosophical Magazine.

ON THE KALEIDOSCOPE.

This amusement being now in the hands of almost every person, any description more particular than what will present itseli in the subjoined historical detail, will here be unnecessary.

Dr. Brewster, the patentee of this amusing instrument, is charged by many with being a plagiarist, and claiming that, as a new invention of his own, which is really old, and the discovery of another. We shall lay the grounds of this charge before our readers;— and we begin with some remarks which have appeared in the French Journals:

"Scarcely," says one of them, "had the Kaleidoscope been imported into Paris, when twenty competitors started forward. and each, his glass in his hand, contended for the attention of the public. To the Kaleidoscope one opposed the Polyoscope; another the Metamorphosiscope; and as the great majority of spectators called out for something French, we saw immediately this wish gratified by the Transfigurateur, the French lamp, &c."

"M. Robertson," a mathematical-instrument maker in Paris, of some eminence, "reclaims for France the priority of this invention. He brings in proof an instrument, of great dimension it is true, but which for many years has furnished in his cabinet the same various pictures which an adroit speculator has introduced into the Kaleidoscope. Thus Professor Brewster of Edinburgh, to whom the English have attri buted the honour of this discovery, is nothing more than an imitator. This is not the first time that a French discovery has taken the longest way of arriving at Paris. M. Chevalier too enters the lists; holding in one hand a work, published more than fifty years ago, in which the principle of this agreeable illusion is described, while in the other he presents us a lamp which, by adding much to the magic of the effects, merits truly the name which he gives it of the French Multiplicator."

However mortifying it may be to our ingenious neighbours, the French, to have their claims to the originality of this invention denied, the fact is, that should the opti cal principle on which the instrument is founded, and earlier publication, be held to constitute the invention, the discovery will be found to belong to England, notwithstanding the French work "published more than fifty years ago, in which the principle of this agreeable illusion is described;" for