During the recent scientific Congress at Oxford, Mr. Faraday was
exhibiting privately to a few friends his experiment of obtaining the electric spark from the magnet. While this was proceeding, the head of one of the colleges (Dr. T.) entered, and inquired what was going ? He was told that the Professor of the Royal Institution was de- monstrating a proof of his late very important discovery, the nature of which was explained to the Reverend Doctor. " I am sorry to hear of it," said the very sapient Rector ; " I am exceedingly sorry to hear of it; it will only put new arms into the hands if infidels."—Morning Chronicle.
e The first experiment in France of a locomotive machine on a rail-
way was made a few days since at Roanne, on the Loire, about forty- five miles from Lyons. Three or four hundred persons, including the authorities of the department, and a number of ladies, traversed the railway in elegant chariots. The carriages, it is stated, travelk d with unexampled velocity, going generally at the rate of a league in seven minutes, and, at their greatest swiftness, performed twelve leagues in an hour. [The machine was of course manufactured in England ; where, a few days ago, the Legislature threw/out a bill for its applica- tion, because the road that it travelled threatened to encroach on the privacy of an old woman. When everybody else has adopted our in- vention, then, as we did with the steam-boat, we shall begin to think -- about adopting it ourselves.] On Saturday, in Paris, the temperature reached between 95 and 96 degrees of Fahrenheit. On Sunday, the same thermometer marked only SO. With ourselves the thermometer was 75 degrees at eight o'clock p. ne. on Tuesday; ;lid on Wednesday at the same hour it was only 63 degrees.
By the triennial census of the population of Prussia, made up to the close of 1831, it appears that since the year 1828, • there has been an increase of 312,850: the population is now 13,038,960.
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