MAGNUS, Heinrich Gustav (1802-1870), an eminent German chemist and physicist, was born at Berlin May 2, 1802. He early showed a strong scientific bias, which was well fostered and strengthened by his education. Six years of thorough study at Berlin university were supplemented by a year’s course at Stockholm in Berzelius’s laboratory (1828). After some time spent in Paris under Gay-Lussac and Thénard, Magnus settled at Berlin in 1831 as lecturer on technology and physics in the university. In 1834 he was elected extraordinary and in 1845 ordinary professor of these subjects. He died April 4,1870. His numerous papers, which appeared chiefly in Poggendorffs Annalen and in the publications of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, cover a wide range of chemical and physical subjects. His first memoir, published in 1825, while he was yet a student, was a discussion of the spontaneous inflammability of finely divided iron, nickel, and cobalt. From 1827 to 1833 he was occupied mainly with chemical researches, which resulted in the discovery of sulphovinic, ethionic, and isethionic acids and their salts, and, in conjunction with Ammermüller, of periodic acid. The absorption of gases in blood (1837-45), the expansion of gases by heat (1841-44), the vapour pressures of water and various solutions (1844-54), thermo-electricity (1851), electrolysis (1856), induction of currents (1858-61), conduction of heat in gases (1860), and polarization of heat (1866-68) are some of the many subjects of which he treated. From 1861 onwards he devoted much attention to the still vexed question of diathermancy in gases and vapours, especially to the behaviour in this respect of dry and moist air, and to the thermal effects produced by the condensation of moisture on solid surfaces. Many of his ...

MAGNUSSON, Arni (1663-1730), a scholar to whom we are largely indebted for the preservation of the old Icelandic literature, was born in the west of Iceland in 1663. In his youth he resided for a time at Hvamm, then the residence of his mother’s father, Ketil the priest, who was a well-known copyist of manuscripts. In 1683 he came to Copenhagen, and was employed by Bartholinus at first as a, copyist, and afterwards to investigate the monuments and ancient customs of Norway. In 1697 he was appointed secretary of the archives of the kingdom. Before this he had begun to collect Icelandic manuscripts, his earliest acquisition (Hulda) being in 1687. From that time he steadily persevered, but his great acquisitions were chiefly made in Iceland, whither he went in connexion with the royal survey in 1702-12. The old and important manuscripts were by that time falling into neglect, and it is more than probable that without Arni’s intervention the greater part would have been lost to us. On his return from Iceland he was appointed professor of history and Danish antiquities in the university of Copenhagen. He is said never to have recovered the shock caused by the mischief done to his library by the great fire of Copenhagen in 1728. He himself had never the courage to ascertain exactly what he had lost; but it appeared afterwards that scarcely any MS. of real importance had perished. On his death on 6th January 1730, he bequeathed his property to the university of Copenhagen for the purpose chiefly of publishing Icelandic manuscripts (Arna-Magnaean Bequest). The first volume published under the bequest was Njala, which appeared in 1772, and was succeeded by a number of valuable publications of the same class. Arni left behind him no literary work of any consequence, and his ...