798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fling up their feathers, putting themselves in the shape of a ball, and 

 surrounding themselves with the thick strata of air included within 

 the filaments of their plumage. We purpose in another article to con- 

 sider the relations of our habitations to the atmosphere. Translated 

 for the Popular Science Monthly from the lievue ties Deux Mondes. 







THE SAYINGS OF SCIENCE.* 



Br P. L. SIMMONDS. 



IN the last quarter of a century, very important progress has been 

 made in our home industries and foreign commerce ; but certainly 

 the success that has been effected in the utilizing of waste products, 

 and developing neglected ones, is not the least remarkable of recent 

 scientific advances. 



It is evident that, when considered from the point of view of 

 industrial science, the phrase, "utilization of waste," may be fairly 

 applied not only to the unused residual products of manufactures, but 

 to the boundless, undeveloped wealth of nature. The beautiful aniline 

 dye, produced from the tar of the gas-works, is not more an example 

 of the utilization of waste than beet-root sugar, obtained from what, 

 a century ago, was a weed growing by the sea-side. Nature produces, 

 abundantly and spontaneously, in many countries, vegetable substances 

 (such, for instance, as the esparto-grass), which were long allowed to 

 run to waste. Important industrial uses have been found for many of 

 them, and fortunes realized by numbers who have turned their atten- 

 tion toward rendering them articles of commerce. 



The flesh of domestic animals fit for food is almost a waste sub- 

 stance in many countries, since it can not be locally consumed nor 

 profitably preserved. In the River Plate republics alone there are 

 80,000,000 sheep and 25,000,000 cattle to a population of 2,500,000. 

 For years sheep were only valued there for their wool, and, when flayed, 

 carcasses were left to rot, or, when dried in the sun, piled up in stacks 

 for fuel, while later on they were boiled down for their tallow. Sheep 

 get very fat in the province of Buenos Ayres, and those of three and 

 four years will give frequently from eighteen to twenty-five pounds 

 of tallow. Countless numbers of sheep are boiled down every year 

 in the so-called grasertas only for the tallow, which forms one of the 

 staple articles of export. The mutton is thrown away, or used in a 

 dry state as fuel. 



In the five years ending with 1850, more than 1,500,000 sheep and 

 200,000 horned cattle were boiled down simply for their tallow, in the 

 colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. 



* From a paper read before the London Society of Arts. 



