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HARDWICRE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



We much regret to state that, owing to a severe 

 domestic affliction, Mr. John Browning has been 

 unable to send us his usual monthly article. 



A correspondent writes— " Can you help to 

 raise a howl of execration against ali who shoot 

 immigrant birds until some more of us may have the 

 happiness to see them alive ? We do not want to see 

 them stuffed." We wish we could ! 



Mr. C. J. Watkins, King's Mill House, Pains- 

 wick, has forwarded us his list of microscopic objects, 

 chiefly entomological, which will prove of great value 

 to students, particularly those who cannot collect 

 their own material. We cordially recommend it. 



Australians are delighted because Mr. Saville 

 Kent (formerly naturalist at the Brighton and Great 

 Yarmouth Aquaria, now Inspector of Fisheries in 

 Tasmania) has discovered that the small fry, people at 

 the latter antipodal place had been devouring under 

 the idea they were "whitebait," is really the young 

 of the true anchovy. Before that they only made the 

 acquaintance of anchovies in bottles ; and you cannot 

 get much natural history information from the post- 

 mortem examination you make at breakfast and 

 supper. 



In these aesthetic days we are always looking out 

 for new designs. The simple process introduced by 

 Mr. Outerbridge, of Philadelphia, will therefore 

 probably be extended. He has been in the habit of 

 casting molten iron upon lace, fern leaves, &c, with 

 such success that no other ornamental patterns are 

 requisite for the surface. The objects are slowly 

 heated, or carbonised, before casting upon them. 



It is stated that our London firemen are to be 

 dressed in clothing made of asbestos, which is 

 thoroughly fireproof. The plan has been successfully 

 adopted with the Paris fire brigades. 



A German chemist has discovered a new gas — 

 hydride of nitrogen. It is exceedingly stable up to a 

 high temperature, and has a peculiar odour. It is 

 soluble in water, and possesses basic properties. We 

 shall hear more of it before long. 



They have commenced crushing the gold quartz at 

 the Dolgelly mines. The first experiments were 

 made on 625 lb. of material, which is said to have 

 yielded 18 oz. of gold. 



Some sensation has been created by the announced 

 discovery of natural gas near Peterborough. There 

 are a great many clay pits about the neighbourhood, 

 and it was found that the bricks made from the lower 

 beds (which were of a darker colour) required less 

 force to burn them. Moreover, whilst these bricks 



were being burnt they emitted a burning gas. The 

 gentleman who announced the above facts suggested 

 that the Peterborough people should bore down to 

 see whether natural gas existed beneath the city. 

 The latter is perfectly unnecessary. Any geologist 

 would have told him that the dark clay or soft black 

 shale from which the bricks are made is due to 

 diffused organic matter, and that the latter, when, 

 duly heated, gave off sufficient inflammable gas to be 

 visible. In the natural gas stores of Pittsburg, nature 

 has clone for the much more ancient black shales- 

 what the brick-kilns of Peterborough did artificially — 

 the heat in the interior of the earth distilled the 

 natural oils and drove off the natural gases, both 

 being the residue of ancient life. 



Possibly John Ruskin's dream may some day 

 come true, and every craftsman again be able, thanks 

 to electricity, to follow his craft at home. It is 

 proposed to let electric power from central stations 

 to craftsmen. An electro-motor of one-horse power 

 can be purchased for £10, and its cost would only be 

 a farthing an hour. The motor might be paid for, 

 as sewing-machines are, at so much a month. In 

 America and Geneva, the artisans are already availing 

 themselves of the new energy in carpentering, 

 tailoring, bootmaking, watchmaking, etc. 



The Metropolitan Board of Works are about to 

 experiment, at Crossness, with the proposed scheme 

 to disinfect sewage by means of electricity. It is 

 stated that if a current of electricity is passed through 

 a tank of sewage, it disinfects, cleanses, and precipi- 

 tates all the solid matter. 



It has just been demonstrated before the French 

 Academy that the virus or poison of rabies in dead 

 dogs which have been buried more than a fortnight 

 retains all its virulence, and will kill in fifteen days 

 after inoculation with it. This shows the necessity 

 of burning the carcasses of animals which have died 

 from contagious diseases instead of burying them ; 

 for it has been shown that earthworms bring up to 

 the surface the infected organic matter of such buried 

 bodies. 



The Museum of the Nitural History Society of 

 Northumberland and Durham at Newcastle-on-Tyne 

 is pre-eminent for containing the Hancock collection 

 of birds and the Atthey collection of coal fossils, 

 beside many other specimens, animal, vegetable, and 

 mineral. Alderman Barkas, F.G.S., has been giving 

 popular explanations of the objects to young people, 

 which have been highly successful, nearly a thousand 

 persons having responded to his invitation. 



The manner in which certain natural deposits of 

 carbonate of soda have been formed in Egypt and 

 elsewhere was explained by the celebrated chemist 

 Berthollet, on the assumption that an ancient sea had 

 left the marine salt over strata of lime. This theory 



