The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1855-01-26

henever wants to visit the Baltic again with
sealed or any kind of orders. The first in
felligence in London of the last step in the
they afterwards declined. So there may have
been something to dash the hopes of peace
the first news inspired.
Flour, according to the telegraph, had de
clined, The Canada's quotations were for
Western Canal 40 to 43 shillings; Baltimore,
Philadelphia and Ohio 40 to 46, and one Cir
cular said AZ shillings. The quotation by the
Pacific Yesterday is 40 to IL for Western Ca
nal and AZ to 40 for Ohio. This would indi-
cate decline of tUo to three shillings per Dbl.
PROGRESS OF SCIENCE AND ART.-From a
sketch of the transactions of the British AS
sociation, we gather an item or two OF lnte-
rest. Mr.. Crosse showed that the slow depo-
sition of crystals by electro -galvamc agen-
cy, might help to throw light on the forma-
ton of crystalline minerals in certain rocks.
That indomitable Psychologist, (he Will not
allow us to call him Geologist OF ProfeSsor)
Capt. Dewey, would be delighted with inves-
tigating this process.
Mr. Hopkins continued his Investigations
into the degree pressure affects the melting
point of different substances. He had SUD-
lected various substances such as wax, sper-
macsti stearine and sulphur, to pressure
OF IL 600 lbs to the square inch, and found
in each case that the higher the pressure,
the higher must be tbs temperature, before
the substance will melt. Not so in com
merciaI matters in which the heavier the
pressure, the more rapidly the melting and
dissolution. Under this pressure, the most
solid and substantial wealth d'EsOlves and
disappears like snow upon the wafer. Mr..
Fairburn, Mr. Hopkins assistant, had car
ried the experiment to pressure OF 10000
lbs. to the square inch, at which he found
CLAW. and some other substances, had acquir-
ed the density and hardness of some of the
hardest rocks. 1t will take heavier pres
sure than that to make a substance as hard
as the hearts of some people.
A Mr.. Warrington has discovered that,
with the help of painted glass, to exclude
the sun, the red alge, which grow at great
depths in the sea, where there is but little
light, will grow in glass jar This will at
ford hint for interesting experiments among
those whose taste leads them to the cultlva-
ton of plants and flowers. 1t will open a
wider field than the growing OF hyacinths
and other dubious roots in green BEETLES.
We add few items from other sources
Some of them warlike and quite startling for
their awfully destructive reputation.
nobleman, at the time of the taking of
Bomersund, communicated to the British 60
yernment plan "for building floating bate
ries of iron, with which any FORT however
strong, whether granite or solid rock, might
be comfortably reduced" We now learn
that experiments that have been made have
proved so satisfactory that the batteries are
actually in hand. They are to be cased with
six inch iron, with which it is said ninety
With half dozen of these in the Baltic
next spring, it is estimated by the account be-
fore us that Helsngfors and Cronstadt will
be effectually astonisked." We should think
they would but if "astonishment is all, the
nobleman is working to little USE
English, which promises to supplant all other
men destroyers, is q shell recently brought to
the notice of the ordnance committee. 1t is
a shell charged with liquid, (which, after
its release by the conclusion Of the ball,
will ipstantaneously become sheet of fire
burning to a cinder anything it may touch,
and suffocating by its smoke any being
brought within its radius That certainly
ought to satisfy any man, no matter how ex-
borbitant may be his bump Of destructive
ness. A column of infantry, a row of tents,
= ship, storehousss, barracks, and everything
acknowledging the influence of fire, it is said,
will be consumed in a few minutes by the
visitation of a shell charged with this noxious
fluid. What beautiful object would be this
great shell to Nautilus! How easily it would
solve the great problem ofthe excess of pop
ulation, which bothered his brains What a
podsend it would have been to those devils,
the Jacobins of Paris, in the French revolu-
ton, whose great trouble was proper instru-
ments with which to do the 'Work" before
them, viz: the killing of the aristocrats. The
process of murder in the prisons, and churches
which had been converted into prisons, was
too slow with the ordinary instruments Of the
day. Even cannon didn't do the work well
and men with swords, pixies, &c, rushed
up, after the discharge of cannon, to run
through all that had mt been blown to pieces.
This glorious shell would have burnt them
ND bodily. Marat would have deited and
worshipped it.
But these dreadful implements of war have
been invented for centuries, and yet nearly
all of them have failed to realize the prom
ises of their Inventors Many of them have
indeed proved as dangerous to those who
welded them as to those against whom they
were to be used. These may, like most OF
their predecessors, end in smoke, with which
we mean to end this article.
Mr.. j. Simpson. an Englishman, has inven-
ted plan by which smoke is to be suppress
sed and has had . premium awarded to him
H..