374 Scientific Intelligence — Meteorology. 



death was the result. Inhabitants of the coast and Europeans, who 

 for the first time visit the lofty regions of the Cordillera, are usually 

 attacked with this disorder. Persons in good health and of a spare 

 habit usually recover from it, but on plethoric and stout individuals 

 its effects are frequently very severe. After an abode of some time 

 in the mountainous regions the constitution becomes inured to the 

 rarefied atmosphere. I suffered only two attacks of the veta ; 

 but they were very severe. The first was on one of the level 

 heights; and the second on the mountain of Antaichahua. The 

 first time I ascended the Cordillera I did not experience the slightest 

 illness, and I congratulated myself on having escaped the veta ; but 

 a year afterwards I had an attack of it, though only of a few hours 

 duration. The veta is felt with great severity in some districts of the 

 Cordillera, whilst in others, where the altitude is greater, the disorder 

 is scarcely perceptible. Thus it would seem that the malady is not 

 caused by diminished atmospheric pressure, but is dependent on some 

 unknown climatic circumstances. The districts in which the veta 

 prevails with greatest intensity are, for the most part, rich in the 

 production of metals, a circumstance which has given rise to the idea 

 that it is caused by metallic exhalations. 



I have already described the effect of the Puna climate on beasts 

 of burden. Its influence on some of the domestic animals is no less 

 severe than on the human race. To cats it is very fatal, and at the 

 elevation of 13,000 feet above the sea those animals cannot live. 

 Numerous trials have been made to rear them in the villages of the 

 upper mountains, but without effect ; for, after a few days' abode in 

 those regions, the animals die in frightful convulsions ; but when in 

 this state they do not attempt to bite. I had two good opportunities 

 of observing the disease at Yauli. Cats attacked in this way are 

 called by the natives azorochados, and antimony is alleged to be the 

 cause of the distemper. Dogs are also liable to it, but it visits them 

 less severely than cats, and with care they may be recovered. 

 — (Travels in Peru^ by J. J. Von Tschudi, p. 296.) 



2. Presence of Sulphur in Metallic Substances struck by 

 Lightning. — On Sunday, the 14th June 1846, the parish church of 

 Saint Thibaud-de-Couz, three leagues from Chamberry, was struck by 

 lightning; the church was filled with dense smoke, accompanied by 

 a strong smell resembling that of gunpowder. The gilt frame of a 

 large picture was almost entirely blackened, and six gilt chandeliers 

 were all rendered as black as copper would be after long exposure 

 to sulphuretted hydrogen. 



M. Bonjean procured some powder by scraping the surface of the 

 chandeliers, which had been most strongly coloured ; by treating it 

 with aqua regia, ho obtained a solution, in which solution of nitrate 

 of barytes gave a white precipitate insoluble in nitric acid. — (Journ. 

 de Pharm, et de Ch., Decemhre 1846.) 



