A GREAT DISCOVERY IN ENGINE POWER.

We saw some weeks ago, in a Pennsylvania paper, an announcement that a motive power had been discovered which would supercede the use of steam. Some facts have recently come to light which entitle the statement to credit. Prof. Saloman, of Harrodsburg, Ky., has successfully applied the entire power of carbonic acid gas as a substitute for steam, in propelling machinery for every purpose. The power of this gas has long been known to chemists, but their inability to regulate and govern it, has prevented its use as a propelling agent. Prof. Saloman claims to be able to control it with perfect safety; and that it will afford a power equal to steam in one fiftieth of the space, and one hundredth part of the expense, dispensing with both furnaces and boilers. Experiments have, recently been made in Cincinnati which are said to be entirely satisfactory. We are on the eve of a wonderful revolution in science and art. What will be thought of a ship of the line driven around the world by a single ton of coal? The process will not be divulged until patent rights are secured in the different Eu

ropean countries.

[The above is from an exchange. It is well known to those who are acquainted with the history of the steam engine, that Brunnel tried carbonic acid gas in a fluid state, as a substitute for steam, and failed, owing to the inherent nature of gas, as it respects the difficulty of condensation. The difficulty cannot be overcome, we are certain, by any means, to produce as economical a power as steam.-Scientific

American.

THE LOCUSTS.

DR. G. B. SMITH, in a communication in the Baltimore Patriot states, that the seventeen year locusts will appear this year in all those parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Delaware, embraced in the following boundaries: Commencing at the Delaware river, near Germantown, Pa., thence southwesterly to the Blue Ridge of the Alleghany mountains, along the east side of the Ridge to Loudoun to Fauquier counties, Va.; thence easterly through a portion of Fairfax, across the Potomac, above Georgetown, through Montgomery, and upper portions of Anne Arundel counties, Maryland, to the Patapsco; along the north-east side of the Patapsco to the Chesapeake Bay, thence to Havre-de-Grace, through Cecil county and Delaware, to the Delaware river; up the west side of that river to the beginning. These boundaries embrace the area of country to which the locusts were confined in 1834. The locusts, it is said, will appear this year in myriads, beginning to come out of the ground about the 20th of May. The theory, we believe is, that the locusts are hatched from eggs deposited seventeen years previous. Dr. Smith states that the

chambers of the grubs in the ground may be uncovered from the 1st to the 10th of April, by simply shaving off an inch or two of the surface soil with a spade, in any place where trees or shrubbery stood in 1834. They will resemble small auger holes, two to four inches apart.

[As above predicted, some time since, these locusts made their appearance promptly at the time stated.]

THE KNOCKINGS.

article relative to the "spiritual knockings," inTHE Christian Register, in a very sensible troduces the following illustrative anecdote:

reminiscences a case which we deem a very "We are tempted to draw from our college worthy parallel to these audacious fooleries. Our coevals at Cambridge cannot have forgotten a man of livery stable notoriety. His customers were often so oblivious as to the extent of their rides, that he contracted with innholders of the such of his vehicles as visited their respective surrounding country to score their names on taverns. He had also a horse who had been trained to lift his fore foot as often as a slight signal from his master's finger was repeated. A stupid freshman once returned, as he said, from a ride to Watertown, but bearing with him the sign manual of an inn-holder in Concord. The youth persisted unblushingly in his lie. Says the man, My horse knows, and will tell me, how many miles he has been driven.' The lifted his foot fourteen times in succession. The signal was given and repeated. astonished freshman paid his full stable fee, and retired firmly convinced of the preternatural endowments of the horse."

The horse

NEW PROPERTY OF CHLOROFORM.

A DISCOVERY of another property of chloroform has just been announced by two French gentlemen, who simultaneously, and without any consultation with each other, found that chloroform is an antisceptic of marvellous virtue, preventing animal decomposition after death, or promptly checking it, if already commenced. Muscular flesh, and all animal tissues, when subject to its action, become fixed for a long period of time in the precise form and condition in which they may happen to be at the moment of application; and natural colors, even to the slightest and most delicate shades, are preserved without the slightest change. The French academy of science is about to make some further investigations to verify this remarkable discovery, from which so many benefits may be expected in the preservation of military and naval stores, animal food in sea voyages, and its applicability to a variety of other useful purposes.

THERE is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works, says Carlyle. In idleness alone is there perpetual despair.