MISCELLANY. 



507 



Here, therefore, the weeds and ferns hold 

 and preserve the mounds, not only as the 

 better soil, but also as the drier spots. 



The Value of YiTiscetions. — Prof. M. 

 Schiflf, of Florence, -whose vivisections gave 

 rise to the recent controversy on the cruelty 

 of the practice, has published a book, in 

 which he states the results of his experi- 

 ments. The following quotations from this 

 work will best show whether, as the oppo- 

 nents of vivisection have claimed, experi- 

 ments of this kind " lead to no useful re- 

 sult," or are to be classed as " acts of need- 

 less cruelty." Prof. Schiff has studied the 

 comparative effects of ether and chloroform 

 on the animal economy. Ether, according 

 to him, is preferable to chloroform as an 

 anaesthetic, because etherization, even when 

 pushed to the very last stage of insensibil- 

 ity, is never dangerous to life, so long as one 

 maintains the act of respiration. And even 

 if one presses the inhalation of ether still 

 further, so that the respiratory movements 

 cease, life is never menaced, if, at the mo- 

 ment of the paralysis of the thoracic walls, 

 artificial respiration is immediately com- 

 menced. Chloroform has been preferred 

 to ether because it acts more quickly, and 

 its use is more agreeable to some persons. 

 But chloroform has a paralyzing action 

 much greater than that of ether, and, in 

 like manner, has a special influence on the 

 nerves of the heart, and of the vessels. If 

 the inhaliition of chloroform is carried so 

 far as to produce a considerable weakening 

 of the respiratory movements, the inter- 

 ruption of the inhalation may, in a majority 

 of cases, lead to the reestablishment of res- 

 piration, and, afterward, of sensation ; but 

 sometimes, in a few moments after the com- 

 mencement of inhalation, the force of the 

 circulation is so enfeebled that the blood 

 passes sluggishly through the lungs, and its 

 rate of renewal or revivification is much di- 

 minished. The blood in the body no longer 

 comes into necessary contact with the at- 

 mospheric air introduced by respiration in- 

 to the lungs. If the action of chloroform 

 is prolonged until respiration ceases, we are 

 not even sure of being able to revive the 

 person, after having reestablished the re- 

 spiratory movements ; for these often again 

 cease, owing to the disturbance of the cir- 



culation, while these same movements, if 

 restored after the inhalation of ether, be- 

 come always more frequent in the patient 

 when left to himself. Prof. Schiff afiirms 

 that, in the present state of science, the 

 medical man is responsible for every case of 

 death occasioned by the application of ether, 

 because a careful watching of the respira- 

 tion is capable of preventing death, while 

 the fatal effect of chloroform depends, in 

 part, on individual predisposition, which the 

 physician is unable to recognize. 



Animals and Fire-arms. — That crows and 

 many other species of birds have little fear 

 of man when he is unarmed is a familiar 

 fact, and suggests that they fear him chiefly 

 because of the weapons he carries. In 

 Scotland, where shooting was prohibited on 

 Sunday, crows and rooks were gentle, and 

 fed around buildings without concern. 

 Singularly enough, the same thing was ob- 

 served of animals by Dr. Tristram when 

 traveling in the wilderness of Moab, where 

 the sound of a gun is quite rare. He says : 

 "We were struck with the sagacity which 

 all the wild animals showed in the matter 

 of fire-arms, little familiar as they can be 

 with them here. As it was Sunday, we 

 strolled or sat down among the ruins with- 

 out our fowling-pieces, and were conse- 

 quently objects of indifference. A fine fox 

 sat and looked at us a dozen times among 

 the stone -heaps, and just walked away, 

 keeping almost within gunshot all the af- 

 ternoon. The Sakkr falcon sat calmly on 

 his favorite perch, and allowed us to recon- 

 noitre him on Sunday, while the eagle, owls, 

 sand-grouse, and partridge, showed a similar 

 contempt for unarmed Europeans." 



The Temperature of the Ocean. — Dr. 



Carpenter recently delivered a lecture before 

 the London Royal Institution, on the " Tem- 

 perature of the Ocean," showing, from the 

 soundings made by the Challenger Expedi- 

 tion, that the difference of chmate between 

 Northwestern Europe and the North Ameri- 

 can Atlantic seaboard is due not to the 

 course of the Gulf Stream, but to the cir- 

 culation of the waters of the Ocean between 

 the poles and the equator. The shores of 

 Northwestern Europe have the benefit of the 

 northward movement of the warm superfi- 



