NOTES. 



863 



method of rendering the fugitive colors fast, 

 must be answered in the negative. The fast 

 or fugitive character of a color is an inher- 

 ent property of the coloring matter used, and 

 depends mainly, if not entirely, upon its 

 chemical constitution. In order to improve 

 the fastness of coal-tar colors we should ex- 

 amine thoroughly the characteristic of every 

 coloring matter, then choose the fastest and 

 reject the rest, or only employ them when 

 they are perfectly admissible. Such a pro- 

 cess of selecting the fittest has gone on in 

 the past with reference to the dye-woods, 

 and such is the sifting process now at work 

 among the coal-tar colors. Side by side with 

 this must run the selection of the most 

 brilliant and most easily applied of the fast 

 colors, so that the ultimate goal of perfec- 

 tion to which we would thus attain would be 

 to have all our colors fast, brilliant, and 

 easily applied. Given a good range of brill- 

 iant colors, it becomes possible by their va- 

 ried combinations to produce the most pe- 

 culiar, pleasing, and attractive shades of 

 grays and olives and browns, and the thou- 

 sand and one delicate tints beloved by the 

 artist ; and they yield when desired a rich- 

 ness and life and body of color compared 

 with which older colors are poor and life- 

 less. Let the artist, inexperienced perhaps 

 in the application and proper use of coal-tar 

 colors, confine his attention, if he wishes, to 

 the more somber and older dye-stuffs, but 

 do not allow him to persuade you that there 

 is no beauty or permanence or other quality 

 of excellence in any of the coal-tar colors of 

 to-day. 



NOTES. 



Peof. F. V. Riley takes a hopeful view 

 of the promise of good results to come in 

 apiculture from experiment and investiga- 

 tion. He pointed out, in his address last 

 fall before the Society of Economic Ento- 

 mologists, as one of the most inviting fields 

 the search for new varieties or species of 

 bees and their introduction; "for just as 

 American apiculture has profited in the past 

 by the importation of races like the Italians, 

 Syrians, and Carniolans, there is every pros- 

 pect of further improvement by the study 

 and introduction of such promising races as 

 are either known to occur or may be found 

 in parts of Africa and Asia." The further 

 study of desirable bee forage plants, and the 

 introduction and acclimatization of such as 



are known to be valuable to parts of the 

 country where they do not yet occur, are 

 very desirable. 



A new spice adulterant is described by 

 Frank A. Hennesey, Ph. G., in The Pharma- 

 ceutical Era. It consists of ground crackers 

 made from a very low grade of wheat but 

 little better than cattle-feed. The powder 

 thus obtained is colored yellow with turmer- 

 ic, black with charcoal, brown with Spanish 

 brown and turmeric, etc., according to the 

 spice it is to adulterate. The biscuits are 

 made in a steam bakery in Philadelphia, and 

 large quantities of them have been delivered 

 to a certain spice house in the same city. 

 The presence of this adulterant can not be 

 detected except by a chemical analysis of 

 some difficulty. Ordinary cracker dust has 

 also been used for this purpose. 



A correspondent of La Nature, from 

 Bagdad, describes a shower of rain accom- 

 panied by a fall of " manna," that took 

 place in August, 1890, around Mardeen and 

 Diarbekir. A surface about ten kilometres 

 in circumference was visited. The nutritious 

 substance was picked up by the people and 

 made by some of them into bread, which 

 had a pleasant taste and was easily digested. 

 A specimen of it sent to La Nature was in 

 the form of spherules, about as large as 

 millet-seed, agglutinated together; was yel- 

 lowish on the outside and white within. It 

 proved, after a botanical examination, to be a 

 lichen (Lecanora esculenta), which, according 

 to Decaisne, is common in the arid mount- 

 ainous regions of the Tartarian desert, 

 where it lies on the ground, distinguishable 

 only by the most practiced eyes from the 

 gravel with which it is mingled. Parrot 

 told, in 1828, of a shower of it which fell in 

 Persia, where it was collected by the people 

 and was greedily eaten by cattle. The par- 

 ticles had probably been taken up by some 

 whirlwind and separated from the accom- 

 panying sand while passing through the at- 

 mosphere. 



A bold device, which will also furnish a 

 new source of excitement, is suggested by 

 M. Aristide Berges, a French engineer, in 

 the shape of an elevator-car to fall, with its 

 passengers, through a thousand feet, or the 

 height of the Eiffel Tower. During its fall 

 the machine will acquire a velocity of about 

 250 feet per second, or more than twice that 

 of the swiftest express train. The car will be 

 built in the form of a long cone, strength- 

 ened by inner cones which will act to pre- 

 vent the sudden compression of the air 

 within the chamber, and will be about 

 thirty feet high. To break its fall, a well 

 of water will be provided, 160 feet deep, 

 into which the machine will descend, and 

 sink so gradually as to remove the sensation 

 of shock. A picture is published by the de- 

 signer showing the car carrying fifteen peo- 

 ple in its headlong journey. 



