HARDWICKE'S SC 1 EN C E-GO SSIP. 



69 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



A Remarkable Spring. —About sixty miles 

 'north of Galena, Texas, near the town of Liberty, 

 there is a spring, the water of which is quite acid, 

 simulating lemonade, and those who taste it like it 

 so much that they drink it almost immoderately. 

 When you feel hot, it is quite delicious ; and under 

 any circumstances, whether you are hot or cold, the 

 drinking of it produces perspiration, with no 

 unpleasant effects afterwards. The spring has no 

 apparent outlet or inlet. It is probably sixty feet 

 across it, and it is covered with a, white froth or 

 foam, which upon close examination appears like 

 cream of tartar on a wine-cask. It kills insects, 

 worms, and other small animals that come near and 

 use it. No fisli or other evidence of life is seen 

 within its waters. — Boston Journal of Chemistry. 



Luminous Eungi. — In the interesting and in- 

 structive life of the late Professor Harvey 

 (page 290) mention is made of sonie Australian 

 fungi, "which shed abroad glare of light among the 

 grass and decayed leaves." "Their light was very 

 white, like ghostly moonlight, and so strong that I 

 could see the time on my watch. I gathered some, 

 and found them to be agarics . . . . t brought them 

 home, and they retained their lustre till decompo- 

 stion set in." Has any instance of luminous British 

 mushrooms been verified, or is this singular sight 

 confined to the fungi of the antipodes ?— Frances 

 I. Battersby. 



Woodcocks and Holly-berries.— Do wood- 

 cocks often feed upon holly-berries ? During the 

 severe frost of January, a pair of these birds ven- 

 tured within three yards of our parlour window and 

 seemed anxiously searching for food at the foot of 

 a holly-bush which had been covered with berries 

 this season. Apropos to Mrs. Watney's last letter, 

 I remember hearing a clever and accomplished 

 lady visitor exclaim, on perceiving a blackbird 

 pecking crumbs off a window-sill, "Oh what a 

 beautiful yellow-billed raven ! " to the intense 

 amusement of some children who had been taught 

 to " understand something of their own planet."* 

 And on showing a drawer of butterflies to a person 

 in our neighbourhood, his first qnestion was " How 

 do you keep them alive?" — Frances I. Battersby. 



Electkic Stockings (p. 45). — The phenomena 

 described by " E. M. P." are very curious. I am 

 not sufficiently versed in electric science to offer 

 any explanation, but I can record some additional 

 facts which may be interesting to your corre- 

 spondent. It is by no means necessary, in order to 

 produce such results as he describes, that two 

 different materials should be in contact. Hundreds 

 of times, when I have taken off my flannel jacket at 

 night, I have heard the same crackling noise, and 

 the material has seemed to cling together; and if I 

 have done it in the dark, the experiment has pro- 

 duced very distinct electric light. This has gene- 

 rally, if not always, been in frosty weather, after I 

 have been roasting myself at a good fire. Another 

 fact in connection with this is curious,— namely, that, 

 as I grow older, this power of producing electricity 

 seems to be growing weaker; and I now seldom 

 observe the phenomenon which used to be of com- 

 mon occurrence .when I was a boy. Evidently some 



Kingsley. 



change has taken place in myself. Every one is 

 familiar with the electric nature of a cat : this, too, 

 is most apparent in cold weather and before a fire. 

 On such occasions, if I stroke a cat for some time 

 the right way of the grain, and then hold my hand 

 an inch from the cat's back, the hair will rise up 

 erect and touch my hand; and if I put my knuckle 

 to her ear, I hear a slight report, and feel a decided 

 shock ; and the cat feels it too, and disapproves of 

 it ; for, after one or two trials, she cringes her 

 ears, and makes her escape. Many children are as 

 electric as cats. If their hair be combed before a 

 warm fire, it will crackle, and will follow the hand 

 and stand on end. — Robert Holland. 



Electric Stockings. — " E. M. P." will find a 

 rather long account of electric stockings in the 

 " Encyc. Brit.," 7th edition, article " Electricity." 

 A Mr. Robert Symner first described the pheno- 

 menon in 1759. Two black or two while silk 

 stockings, he says, on the same leg produce no 

 effects, but a black and a white stocking "rushed 

 to meet each other at the distance of a foot and a 

 half." He also produced electricity by drawing 

 them on the hand, but the electricity was less 

 powerful than when the stockings were drawn 

 from the leg. He describes the stockings flying to 

 and sticking to the wall, and succeeded in charging 

 Leyden jars by means of them. — /. R. Davies. 



"Eye-stones."— All the surrounding countries of 

 the Baltic are distinguished by the great number of 

 fresh-water lakes which they contain, and not only 

 those which are mountainous, like Sweden, but also 

 the alluvial soil of the northern coast of Germany. 

 In Mecklenburg alone are counted about 200 lakes. 

 Many of these are rich in fish, as well as in the 

 common Cray-lish (Astacus fluviatilis)* which is a 

 smaller relation to the Lobster, whom it much re- 

 sembles. In the heads of some of the larger of these 

 are found the " Eye-stones," which are often used 

 for removing small particles of dust, &c, from the 

 eye, and which answer exactly the description given 

 by Mr. T. C. Izod in No. 73 of this Journal. It is 

 much to be regretted that the increased demand 

 for this delicate shell-fish has played sad havoc 

 among them, and many waters, which in former 

 times produced great quantities, are now almost 

 devoid of them. Three cray-fish to a pound in 

 weight was no great rarity at one time, while now 

 they are caught when too young to leave any 

 offspring behind them. One of my brothers is 

 living in the midst of a district which was once 

 celebrated for and abounded in cray-fish, to whom 

 I will write for some specimens ; and if he will still 

 be able to procure them, I shall deposit them with 

 the Editor of Science-Gossip, who will, perhaps, 

 be kind enough to distribute them to persons 

 interested in them. — C. Becker. 



"Eye-stones." — A few minutes previous to 

 seeing the " Eye-stone " contributions in last 

 month's Science-Gossip, we had sent to London 

 two operculums (or "fish-eyes," as we call them 

 in New South Wales) to be mounted in gold. As 

 " eyes " in appearance, the convex sides are perfect, 

 dark pupils melting into a bright-green iris, then 

 the white, and arching over all a brown eyebrow. 

 On the reverse, or flat side, are the whirl-markings 

 usual to shell lids. Always thinking our little 

 operculums gems, however common at the Anti- 



* In German, " Krebs." 



