The meeting-room this day exhibited a gratifying proof of the excellence of the productions of our English gardens. Of flowers, there were dahlias of the richest colours, and the most varied hues; some produced by plants that retain all their ancient stature, and others by dwarfs which seem to have lost nearly every character of the dahlia but its beauty. Of fruits, there were endless varieties of apricots, apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, grapes, pine-apples, and melons; one of the latter, from the garden of John Fuller, Esq., weighed thirteen pounds. The best apricot was the Moorpark; the best apple, the Duchess of Oldenburg, than which no princess has a fairer bloom, the best pear the Jargonelle, the best peach the Bourdine (forced), the best pine apple the Black Jamaica. We mention these as a guide to our readers, in their purchases of fruit-trees; for it is certain, that no greater service can be rendered to the public, than to point out the means by which they may avoid encumbering themselves with the polyonymous trash with which every nursery abounds. [p193]
MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.
I. MECHANICAL SCIENCE. [◊]
1. On the combined Action of a Current of Air and the Pressure of the Atmosphere.
The first simplification by M. Hachette was to make the nozzle of a pair of double chamber-bellows terminate in the middle of a flat plate; he found that when the bellows were worked, effects were produced opposite the jet of air of the kind described by M. Clement, disks of card and other substances being drawn towards the aperture against the direction of the current. At the same time that he described this experiment, he also announced his having produced the same effects by using a stream of water instead of a stream of air.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
The apparatus was still further simplified, so as to make the stream of air from the mouth sufficient to produce the effect. A tin tube, A, Fig. 1, was soldered to the middle of a round tin plate, in the centre of which was a small orifice, E; three or four small projections of the tin, f f, were left at the edges of the plate, to prevent the disks of paper, card, or metal, from slipping off sideways. The figure is on a scale of one-half. Instead of the tin plate, a piece [p194] of smooth cork may be used, and for the tin tube, a glass tube, or one made by rolling up a piece of paper.
If the tube be held horizontally, or inclining a little upward, and a disk of card or paper be placed loosely against the aperture in the plate, it will be found that, on applying the mouth to the end of the tube, and blowing air through, that the disk will not be driven away, but actually made to apply closely to the surface of the plate; and if turned towards the ground it will be found to remain opposite the hole, and not to fall until the current of air is stopped. Even a plate of tin may in this way be suspended by a current of air; which at first would be supposed to conjoin with gravity in forcing it to the ground. When the disk is flexible and slightly elastic, a heavy sound, and sometimes even a shrill tone, is produced by the vibrations of the plate.