38 



HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE-G OS SIP. 



little fellow quickly sheds his tail, which retains 

 muscular action for an hour or more. The full- 

 grown ones I do not believe can develope a fresh 

 appendage, but the very young specimens I am not 

 so sure about ; in fact I think they may grow again. 

 In support of this view, scores of full-grown lizards 

 are seen minus the tail ; a young one — never. Yet 

 they must often cast them. 



The small brown lizard is susceptible to sound and 

 influenced by a fixed stare. To prove this : — On one 

 occasion I forced one to remain fully a quarter-of-an- 

 hour, lying on a wall, to be sketched. This was 

 simply by whistling in a low key and steadily rivet- 

 ting his eye. Directly I removed the fixed gaze and 

 stopped whistling, the lizard disappeared over the 

 wall. It would have been perfectly easy to hold him 

 stationary for another equal period. 



I cannot leave the woods without a reference to the 

 beauty of autumn berries hanging well on into the 

 winter. The clusters belonging to the guelder rose 

 ( Viburnum opulus) retain the cymes of transparent 

 crimson fruit. The orange-scarlet calyces of the winter 

 cherry (Physalis alkekenji) are still creeping on the 

 ground, some decayed to a network showing the 

 orange berry within. The spindle (Euonymus 

 Europccus) capsules of coral-pink have expanded, to 

 show the contrast in colour with the berry inside. 

 (In gardens below, the E. Japo7iica is in fruit, nearly 

 like that of the common spindle.) Bryony, tamus, 

 privet, with splendid branches of butcher's broom 

 {Ruscus aculeatus), covered with large crimson berries, 

 still remain. Higher up in the woods, where lime- 

 stone crags form a sheltering, perpendicular barrier, 

 the crevices are clothed with numberless fronds of the 

 lacy fern (Asplenia m fontanum), now extinct, I fear, 

 in Britain. A. viride is also found, a remarkable 

 intermediate variety ; also appears, A. fontanum 

 minus ; this, I think, is a hybrid between the other 

 two species. 



A tiny spring trickles forth from the rocks. In the 

 midst of this, clinging in thick tufts to the face of the 

 cliff, great masses of moss luxuriate. The species 

 (Hyp)ium commutatum) is of large growth, and other- 

 wise worth inspection. Instead of being soft and 

 yielding to the touch, the framework of each frond 

 and branchlet is gritty and rigid ; the cryptogam has 

 absorbed the calcareous particles from the water. 

 The Marchantia polymorplia also grows in great 

 perfection, coating the moist stones. But one 

 observer cannot describe the hundredth part of the 

 organic life revealed so lavishly on every side. Fungi, 

 .land mollusca, coleoptera, larva:, representatives of 

 classes and orders seem abundant. 



Christmas, 1S86. F. G. S. 



P.S. — Since writing the above, a full-grown brown 

 lizard has been shown to me, having a knotted joint 

 in the middle of the tail. It is evidently a new 

 growth from the joint ; whether re-developed when 

 the animal was young or not, I cannot say. 



GOSSIP ON CURRENT TOPICS. 

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



PRESERVATION OF TIMBER BY WATER. 

 — Builders and all others who are interested in 

 the preservation of timber should understand the 

 particulars of a discovery recently made by Professor 

 Poleck, viz., that timber which has been long 

 immersed in water is thereby rendered free from 

 ordinary liability to dry not. The water slowly dis- 

 solves out the nutritious albumen and salts of the 

 wood, and thus deprives the fungus of its necessary 

 food. In most of the mountainous timber-growing 

 countries this immersion is obtained by the ordinary 

 mode of transport which is that of felling the trees, 

 then sliding them down the mountain slope into a 

 torrent below, which tumbles them forward to a wider 

 tributary, and this again carries them to a main river 

 where they are collected and made into rafts, which 

 slowly float with the aid of a little steering until they 

 reach the estuary or depots on the river side, where 

 they are collected and shipped, or otherwise carried, 

 to their final destination. 



In the greatest timber district of Norway the mode 

 of transport is simpler even than this. Trees and 

 deals and planks, the latter sawn by water power 

 near their place of growth, are pitched into torrents, 

 lakes and tributaries, and thence float into the broad 

 Drams Elv down which they slowly drift to the 

 timber metropolis, Drammen ; a longer town than 

 the "lang town o' Kirkaldy," as it consists of little 

 more than one street, a double row of houses three or 

 four miles long with the broad river running down the 

 middle. Each j^iece of wood is marked with the 

 owner's brand, travels "on its own hook," independent 

 of rafter, till it reaches this long street where it is 

 shipped. I have seen parts of the river above Dram- 

 men about as wide as the Thames at Woolwich, so 

 completely paved with floating timber that one 

 might walk across it. Men are employed all along 

 the banks to push stranded erratics back into the 

 river. The result of this slow floating, especially to 

 sawn deals, is a complete washing out of the fungus 

 food above named. 



Those who doubt the preservative action of water 

 may try a simple experiment. Take two portions of 

 sawdust from freshly cut timber, bury one in damp 

 earth at once, but let the other be soaked for a week 

 or two in an abundant quantity of fresh water ; then 

 bury this. The first example will rot away in a few 

 years, the second will suffer no other change than a 

 darkening of colour. 



New Uses for Solid Carbonic Acid.— The 

 discovery of the possibility of solidifying carbonic 

 acid is sufficiently recent to come within the reach of 

 my recollection. I well remember the famous popular 

 lecturer, Mr. Addams ("double d Addams," as he 

 was called by way of distinction), promising to show 



