362 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



CHINESE OIL-BEANS. 



These beans, remarkable for the amount of proteine matter 

 and oil they contain, are but little used as food for man, but 

 are cultivated mainly as feed for cattle and for fertilizing. 

 The ripe beans, as well as the oil-cake, are fed; the oil-cake also 

 serving as a manure for sugar-cane and mulberry-trees. The 

 oil, expressed as usual by wedges, has a honey-yellow tint, 

 and a rather delicate and pleasant odor, and is quite fluid. 

 It may be used as a table oil, or for illumination, without 

 previous purification. A clay soil seems best adapted to the 

 cultivation of the oil-beans, which in China is well fertilized 

 with bone and wood ashes, with the addition of the sediment 

 of the numerous canals. The stalks need no support. The 

 harvest occurs in October, when the beans are trampled out 

 and the straw .utilized as fuel. 1 (7, 1873,266. 



ORIGIN OF THE DOMESTIC VINE. 



According to Dr. Riegel, director of the Botanical Gar- 

 dens of St. Petersburg, the cultivated vine of Europe is not a 

 distinct species, but a hybrid between the V. labmisca and 

 V. vidpina of Linnaeus. The former of these two species is 

 met with in a wild state in North America, Japan, Mantchoo- 

 ria, and the Himalayas, and is characterized by having a cot- 

 ton-like down on the inferior face of the leaves. The second 

 species is also found wild in the same countries, but has only 

 short hairs on the inferior face of the leaves, which are also 

 short and stiff upon the nerves. From the first of these has 

 been derived two of the most remarkable of the American 

 cultivated vines namely, the Catawba and the Isabella. 

 12 A, January 8, 1874, 192. 



RECENT USES OF SEA-WEED. 



By subjecting sea-weed to distillation with superheated 

 steam, according to Stanford's process, instead of simply re- 

 ducing it to ashes, as has hitherto been done, not only can 

 illuminating gas, acetic acid, and combustible oils be obtain- 

 ed, but iodine, chloride of potassium, etc., can be extracted 

 from the residue. The charcoal residuum also possesses an 

 unusual decolorizing power, and can be employed for disin- 

 fecting water-closets, in such manner as to constitute a 



