and silver, or with scales which mimic the colour, and emit the rays, of the same precious metals. Some exhibit a rude exterior, like stones in their natural state; while others represent their smooth and shining faces, after they have been submitted to the tool of the polisher. Others, again, like so many pigmy Atlasses, bearing on their backs a microcosm, by the rugged and various elevations and depressions of their tuberculated crust, present to the eye of the beholder no unapt imitation of the unequal surface of the earth; now horrid with misshapen rocks, ridges, and precipices; now swelling into hills and mountains, and now sinking into valleys, glens, and caves; while not a few are covered with branching spines, which fancy may form into a forest of trees." "To follow the insects that frequent a garden from their first to their last state, and to trace all their proceedings, would supply an interesting amusement for a long life, and, at its close, would still leave much to be done by our successors; for where we know thoroughly the history of one insect, there are hundreds concerning which we have ascertained little besides the bare fact of their existence."

In order to illustrate some of the foregoing remarks, I have sent for your examination, detached portions from the wing-cases of various species of buprestis, curenlio, cantharis, carabus, cicendela, chrysomela, and lytta, together with several specimens of wings from lepidopterous insects. Among the former, you will find two species of the genus thanatophilus. The undersides of the wing-cases of these insects are very curiously marked, and possess fine colours. There is also a small insect, the stenus biguttatus, which, on examination, you will find granulated in a very singular manner. And in some species of the genus chrysis you will find much to admire, both in their colours and in their markings. I have likewise sent you the wing-cases and other parts of the coat of a curculio imperialis. The exquisite colours reflected from the scales which adorn the exterior of this insect, are so vivid, that I have been informed

by persons who have seen them in a living state, in the Brazils, that, when the sun is shining upon them, they are so glaringly brilliant, that it dazzles their eyes to look on them! Accompanied with these, I likewise send a small piece, cut from the wing of a foreign butterfly, which is covered with minute brown scales, and is also studded over with minute green ones, elegantly embossed, and so interspersed, as to appear like brilliant stars in the firmament. Last summer, I placed a few blood-worms (as they are termed by anglers, but which are, in fact, the larva of a species of gnat) in a glass vessel, together with a small quantity of moss and water, in order to breed the perfect insect. Several of these larva underwent their change into the pupa state; and, from some of these, I obtained fine specimens of the gnat, chironomus plumosus. I dissected the proboscis of one of these insects, and found within it several instruments for piercing and sucking the blood. These I have displayed, placed between two slips of glass; they are exceedingly slender, and very finely pointed and serrated. There are also between the same glasses, several minute scales, which came off the proboscis and the antennæ, and are interesting test objects.

In contemplating the power and greatness of the Deity, as manifested in these minute specks, I have often been led to dwell upon the pious words of one of our most inspired poets, Milton.

"These are Thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! Thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heav'ns,
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these Thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and pow'r divine."
I am, dear sir,

To T. GILL, Esq.

Your's, very sincerely,

THOMAS CARPENTER.

Remarks and Additions. By the EDITOR.

In plate II., fig. 4 is a magnified view of one of the globules of the farina of the marvel of Peru, which is of a spherical form, and is marked with circular spots, thinly interspersed over its surface, and which surface is also roughened.

Fig. 5 represents two of the nearly square, and curiously marked portions of the farina of the arbutus, or strawberry tree, highly magnified.

Fig. 6 a highly magnified view of one of the oval portions of farina of the tyger lilly, and which is beautifully reticulated all over its surface.

Fig. 7 a highly magnified view of one of the globules of the farina of the salvia coccinia, or scarlet sage, surrounded with its zones or belts; and as described in vol. IV. page 199, when exhibited to us by Mr. Lister, under his Mr. William Tulley's excellent achromatic microscope. Mr. Lister furnished this beautiful object, as well as the triangular farina of the fuschia coccinia, or scarlet fuschia, highly magnified views of which are given in fig. 8, to Mr. T. Carpenter; as likewise other curious portions of the farina of various plants, selected by him, and mounted between glass slips, as transparent objects for the microscope. The portions of triangular farina of the fuschia coccinia, are connected together by exceedingly slender filaments, a circumstance which the Editor has also observed in other kinds of farina.

Fig. 9 is a magnified view of one of the compound hairs on the exuvia of a spider, which Mr. T. Carpenter terms herring-bone shaped. Fig. 10, a single hair, which is jagged all over like a rasp, and as shown in fig. 11, which is a still more highly magnified view of a part of it; this eurious formation was also first pointed out to the Editor's notice by Mr. Lister, and as is mentioned in vol. IV., page 199.

Fig. 12 is a highly magnified view of part of a hair of a

rat, which, besides the dark coloured spots proceeding from each side towards the centre of it, has a sort of pith, of a vescicular structure in the middle of it.

Figs. 13 to 21, exhibit highly magnified views of various hairs cut from different parts of the skin of a mouse, by Mr. T. Carpenter, and mounted between glass slips, as transparent objects for his microscope. These exhibit a singular proof of the vagaries of Nature, in the structure of these her minute works. In fig. 13, a hair is seen as being alternately striped across and spotted. Fig. 14 is another and narrower hair, marked with bars all across it. Fig. 15, a broader one, marked with two rows of spots proceeding from the edges towards the centre of it, but not meeting each other. Fig. 16 is another hair, having rows of three spots each, extending across it. Fig. 17, a hair with a row of dark spots on each side of it, and two vescicles between them. Fig. 18, a hair with two plain bands running along its edges one on each side, and barred across between them. Fig. 19 has a very singular structure, resembling a kind of plait. Fig. 20 has deeply serrated edges, and a vescicular kind of pith along the middle of it. And fig. 21 is a hair, which, besides being barred across, has its edges serrated, in a manner approaching in resemblance to that of the hair of a bat.

Fig. 22 is a highly magnified view of the hair of a bat, which has been thought to be formed in a screw-like manner; but fig. 23, which is another of these hairs, likewise shown as highly magnified, does not appear to justify that supposition.

Fig. 24 represents several highly magnified scales, which adorn a foreign curculio; these have an opalline appearance when viewed as opaque objects, and they are also curiously furrowed like shells. Two stout white hairs are also shown, which accompanied the scales.

Fig. 25 is a highly magnified view of one of the brilliant though minute green scales or feathers, which are thinly interspersed amongst numerous brown ones, with which the

wing of a foreign butterfly in Mr. T. Carpenter's possession is covered.

Fig. 26 is part of the curious antenna of a moth, in the same gentleman's possession.

(To be continued.)

XV.-On a new variety of Borax, for the use of Jeweller's, &c.

THE artisan, for whose benefit we professedly write, frequently complains that we use the terms employed by the scientific chemist, and do not call things by their common names; and perhaps our present labour may be thought liable to the same objection. We think that it is

In

a sufficient answer to this complaint, to say, that bodies are known to the chemist in forms and states, in which they have no common name, and there is, therefore, no choice left, but to mention them by the only names which have been given to them, or to leave them unnoticed. the present instance, as in numerous others, whilst we introduce terms, unknown to the generality of our artisans, we furnish him with the means of preparing that which may be useful to him; although we may not instruct him as regards the play of affinities, and the combination of the atoms which constitute this new substance.

Jewellers, and other fine workers in metal, prepare their borax for soldering with, by rubbing it upon a piece of flat stone, generally a slate, scored across, both ways, so as to form a sort of teeth, which assist in reducing the borax into very fine particles, when it is rubbed upon them with a few drops of water. Now, the ordinary borax is apt to crumble at the edges of the lumps or crystals, in this operation, and small fragments of it thus become mixed with the finer parts, producing not merely inconvenience, but sometimes causing the metal to melt in considerable portions, to

* Abstracted from a Memoir in the Annales De Chimie. By the Editor of the Franklin Journal.