314 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



exceeds that of water, this quantity would fill nearly one hundred 

 thousand wine barrels, and would give twelve and a half grammes 

 (=293.025 grains) to every man, woman, and child on the globe. As 

 a few drops will produce death, it is probably much within the mark 

 to say, that one year's crop of nicotine could destroy every living 

 creature on the face of the globe if its proportion was administered 

 in a single dose. 



Effects of Narcotic and Irritant Gases on Plants. Mr. Living- 

 ston, an English chemist, after detailing several experiments on plants 

 with sulphurous acid, hydrochloric acid, chlorine, sulphuretted hydro- 

 gen, ammonia, nitrous oxide, carbonic oxide, and coal gas, remarks : 

 " It will be evident from the preceding experiments that gases divide 

 themselves into two classes as regards their action on plants, namely, 

 into narcotic and irritant gases. This distinction, to whatever cause 

 traceable, is as real in the case of plants as in that of animals. When 

 subjected to the influence of a narcotic gas, the color, it was observed, 

 never became altered, and the plants looked as green and succulent 

 at the end of the experiment as at the beginning. Whenever the 

 plant began to droop, though removed to a forcing-bed and watered, 

 in no instance did it recover, but died down even more speedily than 

 it would have done if left to the continued action of the gas. In one 

 word, narcotic gases destroy the life of the plant. With irritant 

 gases, on the other hand, the action is more of a local character. 

 The tips of the leaves first begin to be altered in color, and the dis- 

 coloration rapidly spreads over the whole leaf, and, if continued long 

 enough over the whole r>lant ; but if removed before the stem has 



^D * J. 



been attacked by the gas, the plants always recover, with, however, 

 the loss of their leaves. In a short time they put out a new crop, and 

 seem in no way permanently injured ; but of course, if repeatedly sub- 

 jected to an atmosphere of irritant gas, the plants were destroyed." 



Fruit Printing. At Vienna, for some time past, fruit-dealers have 

 sold peaches, pears, apples, apricots, etc., ornamented with armorial 

 bearings, designs, initials, names, etc. The impression of these things 

 is effected in a very simple manner. A fine fruit is selected at the 

 moment it is beginning to ripen, that is, to take a red color, and pa- 

 per, in which the designs are neatly cut out, is affixed. After a while 

 the envelope is removed, and the part of the fruit which has been cov- 

 ered is brilliantly white. 



The Camphor Tree. R. C. Kendall writes to the Working 

 Farmer that this valuable tree can be as easily cultivated in the 

 United States as elsewhere. It is quite as hardy in its habits as any 

 of our apple-trees. There is perhaps no reason why it should not suc- 

 ceed well wherever the apple-tree will grow. It is indigenous to all 

 parts of China, Japan, Formosa, Burmah, Chinese Tartary, and flour- 

 ishes even as far north as the Anioor country ; but is found in the 

 greatest abundance along the eastern coast of China, between Amoy 

 and Shanghae. In the districts of Kwangtung and Fuh-hien, it grows 

 in dense forests, the trunks attaining a size equalling that of any of 

 our North American forest trees. The camphor gum of commerce 

 does not in any case exude from the tree, as has been so generally 

 supposed, but is obtained from the leaves, twigs, and smaller roots, by 

 distillation. Like all other highly aromatic seeds, those of the Laurua 



