The singular phenomenon of sound occasioned by the vibration of soft iron, produced by a galvanic current, was recently discovered by Mr. Sage, and has been since verified by the observations of a French philosopher, M. Marian. The experiments were made on a bar of iron, which was fixed at the middle, in a horizontal position, each half being inclosed in a large glass tube. By appropriate arrangements, the galvanic circle was completed; and the longitudinal sound could be distinguished, although it was feeble. The origin of the sound has therefore been ascribed to a vibration in the interior of the iron bar; and to the same cause are probably attributable many phenomena. We now pass on to the violent agitation of the air, which is often productive of surprising results. A quantity of feathers, for example, was scattered one day over the market-place of Yarmouth, to the great astonishment of a large number of persons assembled there. But what was the cause? The timid considered that the phenomenon predicted some great calamity; the inquisitive indulged in a thousand conjectures; and the curious in natural history sagely accounted for it by a gale of wind in the north, blowing wild-fowl feathers from the island of St. Paul’s! Yet, not one of them was right. No guess would explain the cause, and yet it arose from the prank of a frolicsome boy. Astley, afterwards well known as sir Astley Cooper, had taken two of his mother’s pillows to the top of the church, and when he had climbed as far as he could up the steeple, he ripped them open, and scattered their contents to the wind.