At a recent meeting of the Asiatic Society in London, a report of the Oriental Translation Committee mentioned the printing of the second volume of the Travels of Evliva Effendi, of the fifth volume of Haji Khalfæ Lexicon, and of the Makamat of Hariri. The Committee had received from Col. Rawlinson the offer of a translation of the valuable and rare geographical work of Yakút, which it accepted, and is about to proceed with the printing of the third and concluding volume of M. Garcin de Tassy's Histoire de la Littérature Hindoui et Hindoustani, including a Memoir on Hindústani Songs, with numerous translations. The Report concluded with noticing the presentation of William the Fourth's gold medal to Prof. H. H. Wilson, in acknowledgment of his services to Oriental literature generally, and especially in testimony of the merits of his translation of the Vishnu Purana.
The annual Report of the Council gave some notice of the progress of Babylonian and Assyrian decipherment as carried out by Colonel Rawlinson, and now in the course of communication to the world by the Society. The Babylonian version of the great Behistún inscription was exhibited on the table; and, in allusion to it, the Report contained a concise résumé of what had been done from the information of Colonel Rawlinson himself, who is of opinion that the inscriptions read extend over a period of 1,000 years—from b.c. 2000 to 1000; that he has ascertained the religion of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians to have been strictly Astral or Sabæan; and as he finds among the gods the names of Belus, Ninus and Semiramis, he thinks that the dynasties given by the Greeks were, in fact, lists of mythological names. The geography of Western Asia as it was 4,000 years ago appears to be clearly made out. Col. Rawlinson finds a king of Cadytis, or Jerusalem, named Kanun, a tributary of the king who built the palace of Khursabad, warring with a Pharaoh of Egypt, and defeating his armies on the south frontier of Palestine. The Meshec and Tubal of Scripture were dwelling in North Syria, the Hittites held the centre of the province, and the commercial cities of Tyre and Sidon and Gaza and Acre flourished on the coasts. And so well does Colonel Rawlinson find the geography made out, that he is of opinion he can identify every province and city named in the inscriptions.
The last Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Paris, opens with an appeal to the governments of Europe and America, for the adoption of a Common First Meridian. The author, M. Sedillor, is a high authority in geographical science, and would trace an imaginary line in the midst of the Ocean; designate it by some "systematic term," acceptable to all, and bring, thus, Europe and the new world into a community of views and interests apart from all national prejudices or pretension. The appeal followed by a letter of M. Jomard on the same subject, and another from the traveller Antony D'Abbadie, who prefers Mont Blanc, or Jerusalem—"against which the Christians of America can have no objection." Among the contents of the Bulletin, is a notice of Lieut. Com. MacArthur's report, eighteenth December, 1850, to Professor Bache, which has been translated entire for the Hydrographical Annals, a periodical work. Mr. Squier's Observations on the Route of the Proposed Canal across the Isthmus of Nicaragua, are also translated. There is a paper of some compass, on the various projects and undertakings for a communication between the Oceans and a like one on the services rendered to geography by the French and British missionaries. Those of the German and American, who have not been less zealous, will be duly credited and recorded, when materials can be obtained for the purpose.
At the meeting for the 22nd May, of the Royal Society of Literature, in London, a very interesting Greek MS. was exhibited. It is owned by a Mr. Arden, who purchased it of an Arab near Thebes. It is nearly four yards long, divided into pages or columns containing twenty-eight lines, the length of which exceeds six inches, and the breadth two inches; the whole is written in a large and clear hand, with great accuracy, since few corrections or interpolations are visible. Although it is difficult to assign to it the actual age, still there seems to be every reason to conjecture that it is of the commencement of the present era—or indeed, which is by no means improbable, that it was written a century or two before the birth of Christ. The delicacy of the texture of the papyrus will afford a strong presumption in favor of the latter period; for it is well known to Egyptologists that a coarseness and inferiority of papyrus indicate a more recent date. The first portion of the MS. is much broken, and presents many gaps and fragments; the end of it bears the title of an Apology, or Defence of Lycophron. The second, or larger portion of the MS., is much more perfect, as it contains only here and there an hiatus, which will probably be easily restored; at its termination we are informed that it is a Defence of the accusation of Euxenippus against Polyeuctus. The author of these orations will, in all likelihood, prove to be the great Athenian orator Hyperides, whose works have been long lost. Indeed, this appears to be almost certain, since some of the Greek lexicographers mention a speech of Hyperides 'for Lycophron,' and another 'against Polyeuctus concerning the accusation.' But who Lycophron was, and what was the nature of the defence for him, remain to be more amply detailed. The subject of this second oration, however, appears to be known,—for Polyeuctus, the Athenian orator, was accused, with Demosthenes, of receiving a bribe from Harpalus. Moreover, the fragments of a papyrus MS. procured a few years ago at Egyptian Thebes by Dr. Harris, lately ably edited by Mr. Babington, at Cambridge, and proved to be parts of the oration of Hyperides against Demosthenes, are so exceedingly similar, both in handwriting and the papyrus, to the present MS. belonging to Mr. Arden, that it is not improbable but that they may have been copied by the same Greek scribe and may originally have formed one entire MS. roll of the orations of Hyperides. A careful examination and comparison of these interesting MSS. will, after a time, decide these questions.
At a late sitting of the Paris Academy of Medicine, M. Orfila, the celebrated toxicologist, read a paper on Nicotine—the poison used in the Bocarme murder. It is the essential principle of tobacco. Virginia tobacco yields the largest proportion of nicotine; from twenty pounds, were extracted four hundred grammes of the poison; a gramme is equal to 15·444 grains troy. The Maryland leaf affords about a third of that quantity. Nicotine is nearly as powerful and rapid as prussic acid with the animal economy. Five or six drops applied to the tongue of a dog, killed in ten minutes. The progress which medical jurisconsults have made recently, is so great, that poisoning by morphine, strychnine, prussic acid, and other vegetable substances, hitherto regarded as inaccessible to our means of investigation, may now be detected and recognized in the most incontestable manner. M. Ortila, in closing his notice, says: "After these results of judicial medical investigation, the public need be under no apprehension. No doubt intelligent and clever criminals, with a view to thwart the surgeons, will sometimes have recourse to very active poisons little known by the mass, and difficult of detection, but science is on the alert, and soon overcomes all difficulty; penetrating into the utmost depths of our organs, it brings out the proof of the crime, and furnishes one of the greatest pieces of evidence against the guilty."
In the London Royal Institution, May 23, M. Ebelman, of the Sèvres works, near Paris, being present with various specimens of the minerals which he has produced artificially,—Mr. Faraday stated the process and results generally. The process consists in employing a solvent, which shall first dissolve the mineral or its constituents; and shall further, either on its removal or on a diminution of its dissolving powers, permit the mineral to aggregate in a crystaline condition. Such solvents are boracic acid, borax, phosphate of soda, phosphoric acid, &c.:—the one chiefly employed by M. Ebelman is boracic acid. By putting together certain proportions of alumina and magnesia, with a little oxide of crome or other coloring matter, and fused boracic acid into a fit vessel, and inclosing that in another, so that the whole could be exposed to the high heat of a porcelain or other furnace, the materials became dissolved in the boracic acid; and then as the heat was continued the boracic acid evaporated, and the fixed materials were found combined and crystallized, and presenting new specimens of spinel. In this way crystals having the same form, hardness, color, specific gravity, composition, and effect on light as the true ruby, the cymophane, and other mineral bodies were prepared, and were in fact identical with them. Chromates were made, the emerald and corundum crystalized, the peridot formed, and many combinations as yet unknown to mineralogists produced.