128 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



condition a land line of one hundred and fifty miles in length across 

 Iceland, and the peril surrounding that portion of the cable which 

 passes over stormy Labrador. On these points we can judge for our- 

 selves, without seeking the assistance of scientific men. But then, on 

 the other hand, these drawbacks would lose much of their importance 

 if it proved to be really true that the line from Ireland to Newfound- 

 land would labor under radical electrical disadvantages from which 

 its rival would be free. This is the point upon which we desire relia- 

 ble information before we can decide which of the two schemes is 

 most worthy of public patronage, and we can obtain it only from a 

 competent scientific commission of inquiry. As the case at present 

 stands, the preponderance of reliable testimony appears to be deci- 

 dedly against the theory that for the transmission of messages the 

 Labrador line would possess greater rapidity or certainty than its less 

 expensive and less complicated competitor. London Star. 



Capt. Haskin, R. N., who has recently been engaged in examining 

 the Atlantic off the west of Ireland, on behalf the Transatlantic Tele- 

 graph Company, has recently made a report, from which we derive 

 the following : "I think there can be no reasonable doubt now but 

 that the descent from the Irish bank to the bed of the ocean is all 

 that we can desire for the safe laying of the cable. So far from its 

 being a precipice, a locomotive might run up some of the inclines, and 

 many turnpike roa Is have steeper ascents. The face of this slope 

 and, indeed, the bed of the ocean everywhere when below the depth 

 of five hundred or six hundred fathoms is covered with the soft, 

 clayey substance called by seamen ' ouze.' The deposit, in the opin- 

 ion of Prof. King and other naturalists, is going on so copiously and 

 unceasingly, that a cable once laid would, in the course of a few 

 years, be ' covered up,' and so forever sealed against the action of all 

 external agencies." 



NEW PHENOMENA OF CRYSTALLIZATION. 



Some remarkable phenomena of crystallization have been noticed 

 by Mr. Petschler in the preparation of glass plates with bichromate 

 of potash and gelatine, for photographic purposes. The striking pe- 

 culiarity is, that the inorganic salt in contact with the organic matter 

 produces vegetable forms ; specimens on glass plates representing 

 mosses, ferns, and algas in beautiful ramifications, which vary in many 

 ways, dependent upon the strength of the solution, temperature, state 

 of the atmosphere, and other causes. The plates were prepared in 

 different ways. Some were first coated with collodion, on the surface 

 of which a hot mixture of gelatine and bichromate of potash was 

 poured, and then allowed to cool and dry spontaneously. In a few 

 hours the crystals began to form and ramify themselves over the 

 plate. The gelatine mixture was composed of three parts of gelatine 

 and water, twenty grains to the ounce, to one part of a saturated solu- 

 tion of bichromate of potash. Several other plates were prepared in 

 which the order of application of the ingredients was varied, or some 

 of them omitted, all of which gave beautiful, tree-like crystalline 

 forms. The great variety and beauty of these vegetations must be 

 seen to be appreciated, as they can with difficulty be represented by 



