of this character, we hope that this request will not be refused. As a commencement of this series of papers, we have collected the names of all the ancient bailiffs and governors of Guernsey, and shall be happy to receive a similar list of the same officers in the olden times of Jersey.

The first bailiff was Gautier de la Salle, elected in 1264. He was succeeded by Nicolas de Beauvoir in 1282. There are no documents now existing bearing their signature. Jean de la Lande was elected in 1302, and we have seen letters of his in Latin, and signed. The fourth bailiff was Pierre de Garis, who was appointed to that office in 1325, some of whose letters are still preserved. In his time Ralph de Beauchamp and Henry de la Meulles were jurats, and their names are the first we have been able to discover in that office. Edmund Nicolas was elected bailiff Jean Le Marchant, in 1394; and

in 1346; Hellier Nicolas, in 1360; Jean de St. Georges, in 1397. Edmund de Chesné was elected in 1409; Thomas Coquerell, in 1412; Thomas de la Cour, in 1443; Jean Henri, in 1446; Guillaume Quertier, in 1450; Pierre de Beauvoir, in 1479; Nicolas Favochin, in 1481; Jean Martin, in 1497; Jean Blondel, in 1488; James Guilles, (so written in the old manuscript,) in 1512; Jean Herivel, in 1546; Hellier Gosselin, in 1550; Thomas Campton, in 1567; Guillaume de Beauvoir, in 1572; Thomas Viemore, by birth an Englishman, in 1585; Louis de Vicken, in 1594; Amice de Carteret, in 1602; Jean de Quertevil, in 1631; Pierre de Beauvoir, in 1644; Amice Androts, (so spelt in the old manuscript,) in 1648.

We have now arrived at the period of the rebellion in England, the effects of which were felt in Guernsey. Amice Androts, above named, bearing the insular title of Seigneur de Seaumarée, was dispossessed of his office, which he held under the royal commission, by Pierre de Beauvoir, Seigneur des Granges, who was supported first by the parliament, and afterwards by Cromwell. During the period of eighteen years of the civil war and the commonwealth, the jurats of Guernsey exercised the functions of bailiff, each in their turn, for one month, a peculiarity sufficiently curious to merit being recorded. At the restoration of Charles the Second, every thing returned into the accustomed channel, and every innovation was corrected, so that the rights, privileges and immunities of the people suffered no detriment in any respect whatever.

We now proceed to the governors of Guernsey.

The name of the first governor, so far as we have been able to discover in ancient records, was Julien du Plaque, a Frenchman. He was succeeded by George Balizon, a native of the same country. The third was Stephen Wallart, an Englishman, described as a relative of an old English family, which inclines us to think that the real name is Waller. The fourth governor was Pierre Cornett, who commenced the castle, called after him Château Cornett. His immediate successors were William Nethfonde, an Englishman, Edmon Rose, and Octovis Le Grand, holding

the islands of the bailiwick in fee farm, as explained in the patent of Edward the Third. The next was Jean Titchfield, an Englishman, and probably one of the ancestors of the present family of Portland, the marquisate attached to that dukedom being distinguished by the title of marquess of Titchfield. The two next were William Weston and Richard, called Richard L'Anglois. They were succeeded by Pierre Meautis, who conspired with the French to deliver up the island, and, in furtherance of this treachery, our manuscript says that several galleons were sent from Marseilles, but the plot proved abortive. After him followed François Camberlain, Leonard Camberlain, Thomas Leython, lord Souches (quære? Zouch), lord George Carey, and lord Henry Dayvreus, earl of Danby. Peter Osborn, the brother of the earl of Danby, was the next governor. During his time the rebellion broke out in England, and in the year 1644 he held Castle Cornett for the king against the parliament, and battered the town of St. Peter's Port with cannon. During twelve years he blockaded the harbour, so that boats or vessels could only unload at St. Sampson's, and our manuscript states that he fired more than one thousand balls during the above period. This appears to be exaggerated, for, unless his gunners were very unskilful, so many shots must have reduced the town, which must have been very small in those days, into a complete heap of ruins.

During the civil war and the commonwealth several governors were sent from England. The first was the earl of Norwich, who appointed, as his delegates, twelve commissioners to superintend the affairs of Guernsey, Alderney, and Serk, subject to the supreme authority of the parliamentarians. He was succeeded by colonel Robert Russell. After him followed colonel Cox, who remained but a very short time in the island, and appointed an officer, named Magor, military commandant of the troops. The successors of Cox were colonel John Bingham, Henry Warsey, lieut.-colonel Wayvern, and captain Sharp. During the administration of this last, Charles the Second was restored, and proclaimed king in Guernsey by Abraham Carey, at that time sheriff, and Nathaniel Dorel was sworn as lieut.-governor, under the royal commission, on the 2d May, 1661, at which same date Amice Androts was appointed bailiff. The governor in chief was Hugh Pollard, knight bannerett, who appears to have been instantly superseded, as intelligence was received in Guernsey on the 12th May, 1661, that lord Christopher Hatton was nominated in his stead. Our manuscript gives a curious statement of the militia force of the island, when mustered on the 27th August, 1621. The town furnished three hundred and twelve men; St. Peter-in-the-Wood, one hundred and twenty; Torteval, forty-five; St. Andrew's, sixty-three; St. Martin's, one hundred and thirty-six; the Forest, sixty; St. Sampson's, fiftyseven; the Câtel, one hundred and twenty; the Vale, one hundred and fourteen; St. Saviour's, one hundred and thirty. In all, eleven hundred and fifty-seven fighting men.

GUERNSEY MECHANICS' INSTITUTION.

Mr. Ollivier's Lectures on the Properties of Atmospheric Air. MR. OLLIVIER commenced by observing, that there is no subject which has a higher claim to our notice, or is more generally disregarded, than the air in which we live. Every one knows that it is indispensable to the support of life, but few understand the mode of its operation, in performing the important functions to which it is destined; nor the means by which it is rendered deleterious and injurious to the animal system, though such knowledge ought to be possessed by every one desirous of preserving health and preventing disease. The thin invisible fluid in which we are enveloped contains suspended in it, or mixed with it, the various gases, vapours and exhalations, that are constantly arising from the earth's surface, all of which are comprehended under the general name of the atmosphere. It has been computed to extend about forty-five miles above the earth's surface, and it presses on the earth with a force proportioned to its height and density. Atmospheric air is now ascertained to be a compound body, formed of two very different ingredients, termed oxygen and nitrogen gas. Of one hundred measures of atmospheric air, twenty-one are oxygen, and seventy-nine nitrogen. The one, namely, oxygen, is the principle which supports combustion, and sustains animal life; and the other is altogether incapable of supporting either flame or animal life. There is also a minute quantity of carbonic acid gas diffused through the atmosphere. It is one of the products of combustion and respiration. The nature of the subject naturally suggested its division into two parts: first, its mechanical, and, secondly, its chemical properties. By its mechanical properties are meant its elasticity, weight, pressure, and effects arising therefrom; and by its chemical properties, its composition, and agency in supporting combustion and sustaining animal life. The air is justly considered a fluid, as it possesses all the properties which distinguish fluids, for it yields to the least force impressed, its parts are easily moved among one another, it presses according to its perpendicular height, and its pressure is every way equal. But there is one characteristic in which it differs from other fluids, such as oil, water, &c., as it may be said to be almost infinitely elastic. Pressure may be exerted upon atmospheric air almost to any extent without producing the least alteration in its properties, as it instantly resumes its former state when the pressure is removed. This fact may be illustrated by a simple experiment. The lecturer here exhibited a bladder, from which nearly the whole of the air had been pressed out, and observed, that the air remaining in it, although elastic, did not expand, because the external air pressed in every direction upon the surface of the bladder-the pressure of the air being an exact balance for its elasticity. But upon placing the bladder under the receiver of the air pump, and exhausting the air which surrounded it, the outward pressure being removed, the particles of air, by their elasticity, distended, and consequently the bladder appeared fully inflated. The removal of the atmospheric pressure thus enabled the air within the bladder to exert its elasticity or spring; but upon readmitting the air into the receiver, the bladder suddenly collapsed to its former dimensions. The same effect was then exhibited in two or three other experiments. In order to illustrate the pressure of the air, the lecturer directed the attention of the audience to the receiver of the air pump. When exhausted of air it became so forcibly held down, that it could not be removed from the plate of the machine, although considerable force was applied. But when the air was admitted no tendency to adhere to the pump plate was evinced, and the receiver could be removed with the greatest facility. Now, the weight of the atmosphere is the

power which thus fixes the receiver to the machine. By exhausting the air within the receiver, the reaction which would arise from the spring of the inclosed air is destroyed, and consequently the weight of the atmosphere presses upon its surface and produces this effect. The pressure of the atmosphere was then illustrated in another manner: an open receiver, covered with a piece of bladder, was placed on the pump plate, and upon exhausting the air from the vessel, the membrane was driven inwards. A receiver was also produced, into the upper part of which a wooden cup had been fitted-some quicksilver was poured into this cup, and the receiver was exhausted: when the weight of the atmosphere, pressing upon the surface of the metal, actually caused it to permeate the pores of the wood, and a shower of quicksilver descended into a vessel placed within the receiver. The lecturer then demonstrated that air could be weighed in a balance: a Florence flask, furnished with a valve, was exhausted, and suspended to one arm of a balance; it was then accurately counterpoised. The air being admitted by lifting up the valve, it immediately preponderated. The flask contained about half a pint, and it took four grains to restore the equipoise; consequently we may infer, that half a pint of air weighs about four grains. From experiments made by the barometer, it has been ascertained that the air presses with a weight of about fifteen pounds on every square inch of the earth's surface; and, therefore, its pressure on the body of a middle-sized man is equal to about thirty-two thousand pounds, or fourteen tons avoirdupois, a pressure which would be insupportable, and even fatal, were it not equal in every part, and counterbalanced by the spring of the air within us. This pressure is essentially necessary for the preservation of the present constitution of our globe, and for preserving the vessels of all organized beings in due tone and vigour. Were the atmospherical pressure entirely removed, the elastic fluids contained in the finer vessels of men and other animals would inevitably burst them, and life would become extinct. The necessity of the atmospherical pressure, for the comfort and preservation of animal life, might be illustrated by the effects experienced by those who have ascended to the summits of very high mountains, or who have been carried to a great height above the surface of the earth in balloons. Acosta, in his relation of a journey among the mountains of Peru, states, that "he and his companions were surprised with such extreme pangs of straining and vomiting, and casting up of blood, and with so violent a distemper, that they would undoubtedly have died had they remained two or three hours longer in that elevated situation." Count Zambeccari and his companions, who ascended in a balloon, on the 7th November, 1783, to a great height, found their hands and feet so swelled, that it was necessary for a surgeon to make incisions in the skin. In both the cases now stated, the persons ascended to so great a height, that the pressure of the atmosphere was not sufficient to counterbalance the pressure of the fluids of the body.

It is this action of the atmosphere which enables the limpet to attach itself to the rocks. It forms a yacuum in its pyramidal shell, and the pressure of the atmosphere supports it where it wishes to remove. It is also thus that snails attach themselves firmly to walls, or to the trunks or boughs of trees, and may be seen even to crawl with their bodies suspended beneath them. The under portion of their bodies is furnished with powerful muscles, which enable them to form a hollow space or cavity in any portion of its length. Their method of fixing themselves to any surface is to raise their bodies into a hollow or cavity; producing a vacuum underneath this cavity, the edges of which are closely pressed upon the surface, and the whole body suspended to it by the external atmospheric pressure, attaching in this manner different portions of their bodies successively to different parts of the surface on which they wish to move, they may be seen walking with

their shells suspended beneath them, not only up perpendicular walls, but also along the smooth surface of a ceiling of a room. The plaything of children, called a sucker, affords also another illustration of the pressure of the air; it consists of a circular piece of leather, suspended by its centre from a string. If this be wetted and applied to the surface of a stone or any smooth heavy mass, and then an attempt be made to remove it by pulling the string, it will be found to oppose a powerful resistance to separation from the surface on which it has fixed itself; and rather than yield, it will, if the weight of the mass be not considerable, carry it away with it.

The reason of this is obvious: the string being pulled, the leather is slightly raised in its centre, and the cavity beneath it is a vacuum, no air having been allowed to enter by reason of the close contact of the edges of the wet leather with the stone. This being the case, the pressure of the air is removed from that portion of the stone which is beneath the surface of the leather; its pressure upon the opposite side of the stone is, therefore, unsustained; the stone is, then, by that unsustained force, pressed towards the leather; again, by the pressure of the atmosphere on the external surface of the leather, it is pressed against the stone. Thus, then, the leather and stone are attached to one another. It is precisely upon this principle that flies are enabled to fix themselves upon a perpendicular pane of glass or upon the ceiling of a room. They have a contrivance in their feet by which they are enabled to raise the central portions of these as the centre of the sucker is raised by the string, a vacuum being thus formed underneath the foot, it becomes fixed upon the surface on which it is planted.

The air not only presses downwards, but also upwards, sideways, and in every direction. The lecturer then proceeded to illustrate this upward and lateral pressure of the air. He placed a card on a wine glass filled with water; the glass was inverted, but the water did not escape, the pressure of the atmosphere on the outside of the card being sufficient to support the water. He then exhibited a long tube, open at one end and closed at the other, with a small aperture in the centre; this was closed by means of a small cork. The tube was then filled with mercury, and inverted in a bowl containing a portion of the same metal; the mercury descended a few inches in the tube and left a vacuous space at the top. The lateral aperture was then opened, and the column of metal was divided into two, by the pressure of the atmosphere, one half immediately descended into the basin, but the other half was driven up with force against the top of the tube. The first experiment is a demonstration of the upward pressure of the air, and the second of its lateral pressure. A funnel was then exhibited, by means of which, from the peculiarity of its construction, water might be made to appear as though transmuted into wine, and which depended for its action both on the upward and lateral pressure of the air. The lecturer then gave a practical demonstration of its transmutating properties, and remarked that it was sometimes exhibited by jugglers and mountebanks in order to impose on the credulity of the ignorant. A siphon and the cup of Tantalus were then also exhibited as another illustration of the pressure of the atmosphere. It is also by means of this power that we are enabled to raise water from beneath the surface of the earth by the common pump. In this operation the atmosphere presses equally upon the whole surface of the water in the well, until the rod of the pump is moved; but, by forcing the rod down, the bucket compresses the air in the lower part of the barrel, which, being elastic, forces its way out of the barrel through the valve; so that when the bucket is again raised, that part of the pump barrel under the bucket is void of air; and the weight of the atmosphere, pressing upon the body of water in the well, forces up a column of water to supply its place: the next stroke of the pump rod causes