HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



221 



GOSSIP ON CURRENT TOPICS. 

 By W. Mattieu Williams, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



A BIG METEORITE.— A visit to the collection 

 of meteorites at the end of the mineral room 

 of the British Museum, presents a curious commentary 

 on the fact that, until the beginning of the present 

 century, the orthodox scientists denied their existence, 

 and treated all accounts of their fall as they now 

 treat all descriptions of the sea serpent, they would 

 have sacrificed their scientific reputation had they done 

 otherwise. This, in spite of the actual exhibition in 

 London, in 1796, of a stone weighing fifty-six pounds, 

 utterly different in composition and appearance from 

 any rock known to exist on the face of the earth, and 

 the fall of which was witnessed and attested by 

 several credible witnesses. 



The Royal Society of that date refused to listen to 

 the evidence ; but was forced to do so in 1802, and 

 now it listens placidly to a theory which builds up 

 the stars, and all the other heavenly bodies, of these 

 wandering lumps. 



The National Museum of Brazil has lately secured 

 a noble specimen, weighing 11,800 lbs. The cost of 

 its transport was defrayed by Baron Greahy. The 

 survey of its route, and preliminary arrangements, 

 occupied three months ; its journey commenced on 

 November 25th, 1887, and it reached the railway by 

 which its journey was completed, on May 14th of 

 the present year. It had to cross above a hundred 

 streams, to ascend 870 feet over one mountain chain, 

 besides crossing many of smaller elevation, and this 

 in a region of mule paths. The distance from 

 Bendego Creek, where it was lying, to the railway 

 that finally carried it to Rio, is 71^ miles. 



Relative Nutritive Value of Starch and 

 Fat. — According to some recent experiments made 

 by O. Kellner, who fed horses on different materials 

 and compared the results, the nutritive value of 

 linseed oil as compared with starch, is 2'6 to 1. 

 These figures were based on calculation of the work 

 done, and it should be noted that the comparison is 

 made between vegetable oil and farinaceous vegetable 

 food. 



I am not surprised at this result, having long ago 

 witnessed similar experiments made upon human 

 beings in Shropshire. At the time when mowing 

 machines were but little used, large numbers of Irish 

 labourers came across to assist in the hay harvest. 

 These were typical specimens of poor cottiers, who at 

 home fed almost entirely upon potatoes, i.e. mainly 

 upon starch. At first, for a week or two, the 

 Irishmen were unable to keep up with the English 

 labourers in mowing, a kind of work which pretty 

 accurately measures the muscular energy of the 

 labourer when paid for by the acre. At the end 

 of about a fortnight, they became able to do their 

 fair share, having in the meantime been largely fed 



on fat bacon. The Irish labourers were annual 

 visitors, and had the same amount of training in the 

 peculiar muscular action of mowing as the English- 

 men. 



My observations in Ireland in the course of four 

 summers, during which I visited every county of the 

 " distressful country," convinced me that the poli- 

 ticians on both sides are raving in vain ; that the 

 chief curse of Ireland is neither the Saxon, nor the 

 priest, nor the league, nor the tory, nor the radical, 

 but is the potato ; and the craving for a sluggish 

 distension of the stomach which is generated 

 by potato feeding, becomes a vice that in many 

 cases is comparable to the alcohol crave. Mr. 

 Parnell would be converted into a true patriot, a 

 genuine benefactor to his country, if he would im- 

 port the Colorado beetle, or any other creature that 

 should devastate and finally extirpate the debasing 

 tuber. Even pigs degenerate if fed upon it ex- 

 clusively, and human beings similarly fed suffer from 

 a combination of habitual distension, and lack of 

 nutrition that deprives them of both physical and 

 moral energy. The Irishman transplanted to America 

 and properly fed, becomes quite an altered being, so 

 far as industry and general energy are concerned. 



Consumption of Muscle by Exercise. — In 

 Chapter xix. of "The Chemistry of Cookery," 

 I have discussed the two rival theories of the 

 " Physiology of Nutrition," that of Liebig, and that 

 which has been lately picked up by certain fashionable 

 physicians. The first asserts that life-work is generated 

 by the transformation or self-decomposition of living 

 tissue, the latter that it is due to the combustion o 

 food. According to the first, the work is done by 

 the consumption of the engine itself, which the food 

 renews ; according to the second, by the combustion 

 of the food, as by the coal of our steam engines. I 

 believe that Liebig is right, and that the analogy of 

 the steam engine, which is claimed for the modern 

 theory, is utterly fallacious. . 



This view is confirmed by experiments recently 

 conducted by A. Monari, and recorded in the 

 " Gazetta Chemica Italiana." Monari has determined 

 the difference of the chemical composition of muscle 

 before and after exercise by killing full-grown dogs 

 after repose, and others after protracted exercise. 

 He finds that the proportions of both creatine and 

 creatinine are increased by fatigue, and that this is 

 especially the case with the creatine. The results of 

 his analyses are displayed in tables. 



To appreciate the significance of this result, it is 

 necessary to understand that the destruction of 

 muscle, which Liebig described as the chief source of 

 animal mechanical energy (that of nervous tissue 

 being also demanded in a lesser degree), is shown by 

 the conversion of organised matter into saline material 

 of a chemical character intermediate between itself 

 and ordinary mineral matter. Such is urea, kreatine, 



