Stated Meeting, April 6. Present, twenty-one members. Mr. DU PONCEAU, President, in the Chair. Dr. Patterson announced the death of Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, a member of the Society, who died on the 16th of March last, aged 63. Dr. Patterson was appointed to prepare a necrological notice of the deceased. Mr. Duponceau mentioned the death, not heretofore reported, of Mr. Adet, a member of the Society, who died in March, 1834. Stated Meeting, April 20. Present, thirty-four members. Mr. DU PONCEAU, President, in the Chair. Mr. Kane deposited with the Society the writing chair used by Mr. Jefferson at his lodgings, during the Congressional session of 1776. Mr. Lea read a Note supplementary to his Memoir, now in the Society's press, on the subject of the Uniones, and permission was given to add the same to the principal communication. The following candidates were elected members :- ROBERT TREAT PAINE, of Boston. JOHN P. EMMET, M.D., of the University of Virginia. SAMUEL BRECK, of Philadelphia. COL. SYLVANUS THAYER, U. S. Engineers. HENRY BALDWIN, of Pennsylvania. WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT, of Boston. Stated Meeting, May 4. Present, twenty-one members. Dr. PATTERSON, Vice-President, in the Chair. Pursuant to appointment, Dr. Horner read a necrological notice of Dr. Philip Syng Physick, late a member of the Society. Dr. Horner having expressed a wish to make the same public, permission was granted to him to withdraw it from the files of the Society for publication. Dr. Patterson read a letter from Professor Henry of Princeton, dated May 4, 1838, announcing that, in recent experiments, he has produced directly from ordinary electricity, currents by induction analogous to those obtained from galvanism; and that he has ascertained that these currents possess some peculiar properties, that they may be increased in intensity to an indefinite degree, so that if a discharge from a Leyden jar be sent through a good conductor, a shock may be obtained from a contiguous but perfectly insulated conductor, more intense than one directly from the jar. Professor Henry remarks that he has also found that all conducting substances screen the inductive action, and that he has succeeded in referring this screening process to currents induced for a moment in the interposed body. Dr. Hare exhibited to the Society fourteen and a half ounces of platinum, fused by his hydro-oxygen blowpipe, and a specimen of pure platinum, freed from iridium by the process of Berzelius. Dr. Patterson submitted to the Society's inspection the log-book of the steamship Savannah, Captain Moses Rogers, launched at New York on the 22d of August, 1818; from which it appears that, after repeated voyages between New York, Savannah, and Charleston, this vessel left Savannah on the 24th or 25th of May, 1819, for Liverpool, saw Land's End on the 17th of June, and arrived at Liverpool on the 20th of June, having used steam thirteen days, and having exhausted her fuel (coal) three days before arrival. It also appears from the log-book that she left Liverpool on the 23d of July, arrived at Elsineur on the 9th of August, left Elsineur on the 14th of August, arrived at Stockholm on the 22d of August, left Stockholm on the 5th of September, arrived at Cronstadt on the 9th of September, and after several excursions between Cronstadt, &c., and Copenhagen, &c., left Arundel, Copenhagen, on the 23d of October, and arrived at Savannah on the 30th of November; that she subsequently arrived at Washington from Savannah on the 16th of December, after a passage of eleven days; that she was sold at Washington in September, 1820, and her engine taken out, after which she sailed as a packet, from New York to Savannah, until September, 1822, when she was lost. This logbook was supposed to derive additional interest from the recent arrival of the Sirius and Great Western steamships, at New York, from England. Dr. Mitchell repeated before the Society Thilorier's process for solidifying carbonic acid, with an apparatus, made under his direction in Philadelphia, somewhat modified from that employed by Thilorier, and froze a quarter of a pound of mercury by the admixture of the solidified acid with nitrous ether. Stated Meeting, May 18. Present, fifteen members. Mr. DU PONCEAU, President, in the Chair. The Librarian read the translation of a letter from Pierre de Goetz to Mr. Du Ponceau, dated St. Petersburg, August 17th (29th), 1837, on behalf of the Imperial Russian Academy, announcing the transmission to the Society of the works which have been published by the Academy, numbering fifty-seven volumes, and also of a donation of several volumes from himself personally. Dr. Bache announced the death of Thomas Bradford, the latest survivor of the original members of the Society, who died on the 7th of May, 1838, aged 93 years and 3 days. Dr. Hare communicated orally, that he has found that when the elements of water are exploded in contact with certain gases or essential oils, the aqueous elements, instead of condensing, combine with the hydrogen and carbon, and form a permanent gas. On motion of Dr. Bache, a committee was appointed to consider the expediency of publishing, from time to time, a brief abstract of the proceedings of the Society. Committee, Dr. Bache, Dr. Dunglison, and Mr. Kane. Stated Meeting, June 15. Present, seventeen members. Mr. DU PONCEAU, President, in the Chair. The Committee appointed at the last meeting to consider the expediency of publishing, from time to time, a brief abstract of the proceedings of the Society, reported in favour of its expediency, and in order to carry the measure into effect, proposed the following resolutions, which were adopted. 1. That the Secretaries be authorized to choose one of their number as Reporter of the Society, whose duty it shall be to prepare and print, from time to time, a brief abstract of its proceedings. 2. That the Reports shall commence with the first proceedings of the present year. 3. That the Librarian be charged with the duty of their distribution. And it was directed that the Reports be published at least once in every three months, if the state of the materials shall permit. Dr. Hays, from the Committee of Publication, announced that Vol. VI. Part I., N. S., of the Society's Transactions, has been printed, and is now ready for distribution. A communication was read, dated Cincinnati, May 7th, 1838, from Dr. John Locke, on the subject of Magnetic Observations, which was referred. Dr. Dunglison announced the death of Thomas W. Griffith, of Baltimore, a member of the Society. |