arrived in Pennsylvania, in a state, one third of which he knew to be inhabited by Germans or their descendants, his expectations were raised to the highest pitch. With what delight he received an invitation of the sons of Herman to partake of a national dinner in the city of Philadelphia, he best can describe. But, alas! when in the midst of them, what a falling off was there! The ancient language forgotten or corrupted; the manners so different from those he had left at home! Even the dishes! a splendid dinner, indeed; no doubt compounded by the most eminent French Restaurateur. But that was not what he looked for. He expected to see Germans, and he found Americans. Must we wonder, then, that his disappointment appears in the description which he gives of this feast? How different were his feelings at the plain, the homely dinner which was offered him by Mr. Rapp, and his Wurtembergers! No high seasoned sauces, no exquisite condiments, no ragoûts were to be seen there. But the table was covered with German dishes. No doubt, there was the beer-soup, the noodles, the sour-crout; perhaps a sly bottle or two of the genuine Hochheimer, or at least the purple Bischof, the punch of Germany, justly celebrated by a charming poet of that nation :

Aber den Bischof

Hebe doch auf; das ist ein gesundes und liebliches Tränklein.

Hand the Bischof round;

It is a wholesome and delicious drink.-Voss' LUISE, Idyl. 3. And the Pfeifchen after dinner; the fragrant tube; the dispeller of ennui, the solace of care! O, the Pfeifchen was surely there; while perhaps, the Pseudo-Germans of Philadelphia, thought it impolite to hand even a cigar! We cannot compare our traveller's description of the two dinners, without honouring his patriotic feelings; while we recommend to the Ex-Germans of the city of brotherly love, to leave off the costume of their Teutonic ancestors, and when another Prince from the Holy Roman Empire shall hereafter visit this country, to invite him to a dinner if they please, but in their own proper character of Americans, the only one which they can sustain with honour and credit to themselves.

But it is time to put an end to this desultory review. We leave our excellent Duke with perfect good humour. He loves our country and we love him. Dear Philadelphia, friendly Baltimore, and the other places which he favoured with his amiable society, will be happy to welcome him again, if chance or inclination should once more direct his way to this hemisphere.

These volumes are embellished with the picture of the author, which we think a very good likeness. They also contain maps of the cities of New-York and Philadelphia, and a small one of Pittsburg, besides a number of vignettes and explanatory drawings. There are, indeed, in this book, many things well known in

this country, and which are familiar to our well-informed citizens. But it must be observed that it was written for the meridian of Europe, and in that respect it may be considered as a good general view of the physical and moral situation of the United States at the time when it was written. There are some occasional mistakes; but not of great consequence. As to objects merely political, it may be well understood why the Prince did not think proper to expatiate upon them.

We understand that a translation of this work is preparing for the press. It will be read with interest, and if we are not mistaken, will leave the same pleasing impressions of the author that we have felt ourselves and been happy to express.

ART. X.-Controversy respecting the pretensions of MARCUS BULL to the Rumford Premium.

1.-Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, for promoting useful knowledge.Vol. iii. part 1; new series. Containing " Experiments to determine the comparative quantities of heat evolved in the combustion of the principal varieties of wood and coal used in the United States for fuel; and, also, to determine the comparative quantities of heat lost by the ordinary apparatus made use of for their combustion."-By MARCUS BULL. 2.-A Defence of the Experiments to determine the comparative value of the principal varieties of Fuel used in the United States, and also in Europe; containing a correspondence with a committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; their Report and Remarks thereon; and animadversions on the manner in which the trust confided to the Academy, by Count Rumford, has been managed. By MARCUS BULL, Member of the American Philosophical Society, &c.

3.-A short reply to a Pamphlet published at Philadelphia; entitled, "A defence of the Experiments," &c. By one of the Committee of the American Academy.

4.-An Answer to "A short reply," &c. &c. &c. By MARCUS BULL, M. A. P. S., &c. &c. &c.

In the year 1823, Mr. Marcus Bull, of this city, undertook a series of experiments, with a view to ascertain the comparative values of different kinds of fuel. In 1826, the results of his inquiry were communicated to the American Philosophical Society, in a paper mentioned at the head of this article, which meeting with great applause, was soon after published at the expense, and under the auspices of the Society.

Thus encouraged, Mr. Bull ventured to apply to the American Academy of Sciences, at Boston, for a premium, which, as trustees of a fund, accepted from Count Rumford, they are obligated to award for meritorious discoveries respecting heat. Mr. Bull was soon apprized by a committee, to whom his claim was referred by the academy, that his experiments were deemed objectionable on certain stated grounds. This led to a controversy, which has been published in the three last of the above mentioned pamphlets, and the merits of which, we propose briefly to

examine.

A person may perform an ingenious, arduous, and accurate course of experiments, and may attain results to which much importance may be attached by competent judges, in whom confidence may be inspired by their acquaintance with him and with his methods of investigation; yet unless some striking discovery be the fruit of his labours, their merit may be honestly questioned by those who know nothing of him, or them, unless by rumour, or through his own writings. These observations we conceive to be applicable in the case under consideration. Our personal acquaintance with Mr. Bull, and our opportunities of observing his indefatigable assiduity, and scrupulous accuracy, while engaged in his experiments, created much confidence in his deductions: yet as they depend mainly upon his own statements, and do not carry any inherent evidence of truth, we are not surprised that a committee of a remote society, who are personally unacquainted with him, should not, in consideration of his labours, have felt themselves called upon to award him a premium, to which time has given an accumulated pecuniary value.

Had the committee then refused the Rumford premium to Mr. Bull, simply on the ground that his results required confirmation, it would have been difficult to prove their decision incorrect; but injudiciously, as it appears to us, they deemed it expedient to object theoretically, and as we conceive erroneously, to the means which he employed to guard against the vicissitudes of atmospheric temperature.

Pursuant to the advice of Dr. Hare, one room having been made within another, so as to leave an interval on every side between the partition A of the inner room, and wall B of the outer

room, it is alleged by the committee, that although the air in the interval may have been kept at a uniform temperature, still the

inner surface of the wall B, may by radiation have varied the temperature of the outer surface A of the partition, in consequence of atmospheric changes. We should have inferred, a priori, that no variation could in this way ensue, which would be sufficiently extensive to merit consideration; and subsequently it was shown by experiments, made by Mr. Bull, in the presence of Dr. Hare, and others, that when the whole effect of the radiation from the wall B, was concentrated upon a differential thermometer, so as to be multiplied an hundred fold, it fell short of a quantity which could have produced any sensible influence upon the most sensitive mercurial thermometer.

But admitting that radiation may influence the temperature of the inner room, without proportionally altering that of the surrounding air, it cannot be supposed that a thermometer will remain indifferent to any change, thus effected. Whenever radiant caloric should be more or less rapidly abstracted from the surface A, of the partition, it would in like manner be abstracted from the bulb of a thermometer, similarly exposed. Agreeably to the plan adopted by Mr. Bull, two thermometers, one within the inner room, the other in the interval between the partition A, and wall B, were sustained uniformly at the same difference of temperature. If under these circumstances, the loss of radiant heat, could not vary without detection, to show that it might escape without altering the temperature of the air between the rooms, were a waste of time; since the measures of the operator in increasing or lessening the heat of the space intervening between A and B, were regulated by the thermometer, not by the air.

As it is notorious that many of the most useful discoveries, have been for a long time treated with neglect, the inference made by the author of the short reply, in the following passage, appears to us extremely unfair.

"About two years ago, Mr. Marcus Bull, of Philadelphia, published a series of experiments to determine the comparative quantities of heat evolved in the combustion of the principal varieties of wood and coal used in the United States,' &c. &c. These experiments, we are told by their author, have been copied and commended in various periodical works at home and abroad; and of course a wide circulation given to them. Their object is said to have been practical utility; and, although their length may have prevented many readers from entering into their merits, yet certain alleged facts, stated as results in a comparative table at the end, are intelligible to all kinds of persons; such as the fact that a cord of hickory wood, possesses more value, or more heating power, than a chaldron of Cannel, or of Liverpool coal, or than a ton of Lehigh coal; the fact that a chaldron of Newcastle coal is of less value than a cord of white oak, or of swamp whortleberry, &c. &c. with various other results equally extraordinary, and at variance with previous opinions on the subject.

"Two years, as has been said, have elapsed; and no great practical good is known to have grown out of Mr. Bull's experiments. The relative prices of the different kinds of fuel, continue probably the same that they would have been, if Mr. Bull had never written. Our citizens continue to pay twice as much for a chaldron of Cannel or Liverpool coal, as they will give for a cord of hickory

wood. Neither a cord of oak, nor of whortleberry bushes, can be bartered in exchange for a chaldron of Newcastle coal. Our manufacturers, whose interests are staked upon the good management of their furnaces, continue to prefer the results of their own experience, founded upon trials made in the large way during many years, rather than adopt Mr. Bull's opinions, enforced as they are by sixty pages of scientific detail.

"What then has been the cause that more practical good has not grown out of Mr. Bull's labours? Is it that any body of men have taken the pains to pursue Mr. Bull, and to write him down in the journals and newspapers? Is it that our manufacturers, so vigilant and discerning upon other subjects relating to their interests, are perversely blind upon this? Or is it that, after all, the cord of wood is not worth as much as the chaldron of coal; that it will not warm so many rooms, nor turn out so great a product to the manufacturer, and that Mr. Bull has been led astray in his conclusions, by fallacious experiments, and an incompetent apparatus. These are questions which the late appeal of Mr. Bull to the public, makes it proper to consider."

It is now well known, that had the labours of Fitch, in applying steam to navigation, been sufficiently patronised, he would probably have anticipated the more successful enterprise of Fulton. Yet it might have been said, with as much justice as the committee have evinced in the case of Mr. Bull, that the public continued to use stages and sail-boats, notwithstanding the efforts of Mr. Fitch to convince them of the advantages of steam.

The discovery of the absorption of oxygen by metals, was made by Rey, and confirmed by Hooke and Mayow; yet fifty years afterwards, it might have been vaunted by the disciples of Stahl, that phlogiston was not on that account the less in vogue.

At one time, it might have been alleged against Copernicus, that, in despite of his ingenious disquisitions, a majority of the learned, as well as of the ignorant, continued to consider the motion of the sun, about the earth, as an intuitive truth.

In assigning the superiority to white heart hickory, Mr. Bull clearly explained, that, in the usual mode of burning coal and wood, the advantage was greatly in favour of coal. It must then be evident, that the advice of Mr. Bull would have no tendency to induce the public to pay more for the wood, unless it should at the same time have been deemed expedient and practicable to contrive fire-places of a different construction from those now in use.

In many instances, errors endure from prejudice or ignorance, and even in opposition to the well-founded remonstrances of scientific men. After Virginia coal had been used for about twelve years as fuel for the engines at our water-works, the war, we believe, rendered a resort to wood necessary, which was then ascertained to be cheaper.

To conclude, however the remoteness of the committee from the scene of Mr. Bull's investigations, may have incapacitated them to judge of the accuracy of his manipulations, and may justify their consequent refusal to grant him a premium of great value, we cannot but consider them, on the same account, as inexcusable for detracting from the merit awarded him by prac