1835.] Scientific Intelligence. 159 



II. — Improvement in the Arts. 



Printing in Colours. — It has long been a subject of regret that 

 notwithstanding the high state of perfection which the arts of print- 

 ing and engraving have reached, that hitherto attempts at printing 

 in colours have been attended with complete failures. Mr. G. 

 Baxter, Wood-engraver, King's Square, Goswell Road, has however, 

 succeeded in printing in colours from wood, so successfully, that we 

 consider it proper to call the attention, especially of naturalists, to 

 the works of this meritorious young artist, who, being master both 

 of engraving and printing, will be enabled, if properly encouraged, 

 to make great improvements in this interesting branch of art, which 

 he may be said to have originated. We have before us a delineation 

 of Howard's Modifications of Clouds, in which the superiority of the 

 new style over the common method of colouring is most strikingly 

 exhibited. 



III. — On the native country of Maize (Zea mays.) 



Roulin, Humboldt, and Bonpland, have noticed this plant in its 

 native state, in America, and have hence concluded that it was 

 originally derived from that country. Michaud, Daru, Gregory, 

 and Bonafous state, that it was known in Asia Minor before the 

 discovery of America. Crawford, in his History of the Indian 

 Archipelago, tells us that maize was cultivated by the inhabitants of 

 these islands, under the name of djagoung, before the discovery of 

 America. In the Natural History of China, composed by Li-Chi 

 Tchin, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, an exact figure 

 is given of maize, under the title of la-chou-cha ; and Rifaud, in his 

 u Voyage en Egypte, &c, from 1805 to 1827," discovered this grain 

 in a subterraneous excavation in a state of remarkably good preserva- 

 tion. M. Virey, however, refutes these statements, (Journal de 

 Pharmacie, xx. 571,) by shewing that these authors have mistaken 

 the holcus sorghum for maize, and that the maize of Rifaud is the 

 holcus bicolor, a native of Egypt according to Delile. Where maize 

 occurs in the east their is no proof of its having been carried there 

 previously to the discovery of America. 



Maize, (Zea, mays) therefore sprung from America ; millet, or 

 couz couz, from Africa ; rice, (oryza sativa,) from Asia ; and 

 wheat, barley, and oats, from Europe. 



IV. — Hydrate of Iron, an antidote for arsenious acid.* 



Dr. Bunsen of Gottingen has proposed the hydrate of iron as an 

 antidote in cases of poisoning by arsenious acid, for he finds that a 

 solution of the acid is completely precipitated by the hydrous oxide. 

 He has observed likewise that if the latter body is exposed to a gentle 

 heat with arsenious acid in very fine powder, an arsenite of iron is 

 formed. He has ascertained by experiments on dogs that from two 

 to four drachms of the oxide, mixed with sixteen drops of ammonia, 

 are sufficient to convert eight or sixteen grains of arsenious acid 

 into an insoluble arseniate. 



* Journal de Pharm. xx. 



