128 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A company has been formed in Califor- 

 nia for the manufacture of sugar from the 

 juice of watermelons. The process is far 

 simpler and cheaper than that of making 

 sugar from beets. An excellent sirup is 

 also made from watermelon -juice. The 

 seeds yield a sweet-oil which serves as a 

 good substitute for olive-oil, and the residue 

 of the sugar-manufacture is used as food for 

 cattle. 



The death is announced of Dr. Lonsdale, 

 the pupil and biographer of Dr. Knox, the 

 celebrated Edinburgh lecturer on anatomy. 

 Dr. Lonsdale was also the author of some 

 pleasant volumes on " Cumberland Wor- 

 thies." 



A new geological map of Scotland, by 

 Prof. Geikie, is announced in Nature. The 

 scale is ten miles to the inch. In addition 

 to the older rocks, this map shows the posi- 

 tion of the more important raised beaches, 

 river alluvia, tracts of blown sand, and gla- 

 cier moraines. 



On June 6th and 7th a cremation congress 

 met at Dresden. The attendance was not 

 large. Nearly all the German governments 

 are opposed to cremation of the dead, chief- 

 ly, as it would appear, because many of 

 the leading advocates of this substitute for 

 interment are pronounced radicals. The 

 Saxon Government has refused to accept, 

 for the benefit of the Dresden charitable 

 institutions, the legacy of Prof. Eberhard 

 Richter, simply because the testator had 

 coupled with the bequest the condition that 

 his body should be burned in a furnace at 

 Dresden. 



It is stated by Prof, de Luca, of Naples, 

 that fruits or leaves kept in an atmosphere 

 of carbonic acid, or of pure hydrogen, after 

 a while begin to ferment. In the carbonic- 

 acid atmosphere, alcohol and acetic acid 

 are produced, and in the hydrogen mannite. 

 In neither case do any organic ferments ap- 

 pear. If this observation should prove to 

 be correct, it will lead to important conse- 

 quences. 



Liquid mercury has been discovered in 

 the ground near Montpellier, and at many 

 points in the department of Herault, France. 

 It is especially found in decomposing schists, 

 but its appearance seems to be intermittent. 

 Its presence is marked by injurious effects 

 on the vegetation : the trees languish and 

 die, the pasturage is spoiled, and the sheep 

 grazing on such ground present the symp- 

 toms of mercurial poisoning. 



Wire ropes of phosphor bronze are 

 much employed in the hoisting-apparatus of 

 mines in Europe. Such wire ropes are 

 much stronger and more durable than those 

 of iron or steel. 



Silkworms hatched by electricity are 

 now being reared in Italy. The superin- 

 tendent of the experimental silkworm-farm 

 at Padua has found that the hatching of 

 silkworms may be accelerated ten or twelve 

 days, and a yield of forty per cent, of cater- 

 pillars secured, by exposing the eggs to a 

 current of negative electricity from a Holtz 

 machine for eight or ten minutes. It is 

 suggested to apply the same method to 

 hens'-eggs and to hastening the germination 

 of seeds. 



Prof. T^it calls attention to a paper 

 by F. Mohr, published in Liebig's Annalen, 

 as early as 1837, which contains views 

 on the nature of heat similar to those pub- 

 lished later by Dr. Mayer. Mohr's essay is 

 said to contain about all that is correct in 

 Mayer, while avoiding some of his errors. 



There are in Algeria 613 artesian wells, 

 representing a total depth of over 26 kil- 

 ometres (16.12 miles). The cost of these 

 wells, including one of exceptional depth 

 (596 metres, or about 2,000 feet), was 

 2,500,000 francs, or 95 francs per metre. 



A living gorilla has been brought to 

 Europe from Africa, by the remnant of the 

 Giissfeldt expedition. The animal is in 

 good condition, and is to be placed in the 

 Zoological Gardens at Berlin. He is two 

 years old. 



The Society of Medicine and Surgery, 

 of Bordeaux, offers a prize of 1,000 francs 

 for the best essay upon the following sub- 

 ject, viz.: microscopical examination of hu- 

 man blood, both in the flesh and in the dry 

 state, of the foetus and of the adult, as 

 compared with the blood of other mammals, 

 from the medico-legal point of view. The 

 essays offered must be written in either 

 Latin or French, and submitted to the sec- 

 retary of the society not later than August 

 31, 1879. 



The " Cochin China diarrhoea " annu- 

 ally carries off about 1,000 men of the 

 French army and navy. According to Dr. 

 Normand, naval surgeon, this disease is 

 produced by the presence in the intestines 

 of an enormous number of entozoons, of the 

 new species Anguilhda stercoralis. This 

 entozoon is one-fourth of a millimetre in 

 length. 



George Smith, of the British Museum, 

 famous for his Assyrian researches, died at 

 Aleppo, August 19th, at the early age of 

 thirty-seven years. 



The Cologne Gazette says that Frau 

 Theresa Fiedler von Hiilsenstein, who late- 

 ly died at Prague, had attained the age of 

 one hundred and nineteen years. She was 

 born at Hamburg in 1757, and was in her 

 youth a maid-of-honor to the Empress Maria 

 Theresa. 



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