MISCELLANY, 



509 



is even more remarkable than the descent 

 off the American coast. Fifty miles from 

 Honolulu soundings gave 498 fathoms ; 

 40 miles farther east, in latitude 21° 43' 

 north, longitude 156° 21' west, the depth 

 was 3,023 fathoms. Between the last-men- 

 tioned point and that of greatest depth a 

 hill rises, on whose summit there are only 

 2,488 fathoms of water. 



The Origin of Hair-Saakcs.— Dr. Slack, 

 in the Tiirf^ Field^ and Farm^ satisfactorily 

 answers the question put by a correspond- 

 ent, as to the origin of the so-called hair- 

 snake or hair-worm. The common belief 

 is that these creatures are a transformation 

 of a horse-hair that has remained for some 

 time in water. "When a walking-stick," says 

 Dr. Slack, *' becomes a snake, a horse-hair 

 will become a worm. As the former miracle 

 has not taken place since the departure of 

 the Israelites from Egypt, it is safe to con- 

 clude that the latter transformation has not 

 recently been made. A dry hair placed in 

 water will absorb the moisture, and, from 

 the unequal expansion of the exterior and 

 interior layers, will become contorted ; so 

 too, would a piece of two-inch rope, yet we 

 have never heard of the latter having been 

 accused of possessing vitality. The hair- 

 snake is a living creature, endowed with 

 organs of locomotion and respiration, and 

 capable of propagating its species. Scien- 

 tifically it is known as Gordius aquaticus, 

 the generic name being derived from the 

 Gordian knot, in allusion to the tangled 

 appearance often presented by a multitude 

 of these animals. The specific name 

 aquaticus is not so appropriate, for they 

 thrive out of water." Dr. Slack has taken 

 Gordii six inches in length from the body of 

 a grasshopper. They have also been found 

 in the stomachs of insectivorous birds. 



Cast and Wrought Iron Stoves. — A com- 

 mission of the French Academy of Sciences 

 has been investigating the hygienic effects 

 of the use of cast-iron stoves. Experiments 

 were made with stoves of wrought and cast 

 iron, using soft coal, with the view of learn- 

 ing under what conditions stoves of metal 

 became unhealthy, through the presence of 

 carbonic acid and carbonic oxide, in the 

 rooms heated by them. Rabbits were made 



to breathe the air passing over stoves of 

 cast and wrought iron heated to redness, 

 and afterward the blood of the animals was 

 chemically examined, to ascertain the pres- 

 ence of carbonic oxide. The report states 

 that, though the results of experiments 

 made upon rabbits do not enable us to fix 

 with precision the proportion of carbonic 

 oxide absorbed by their blood, nor that of 

 the oxygen which has been expelled from 

 it, still they show that the use of cast-iron 

 stoves, at a red heat, causes in the blood, by 

 the presence of carbonic oxide, a gas emi- 

 nently poisonous, changes whose repetition 

 may become dangerous ; while the same 

 method of investigation has not revealed 

 analogous effects from stoves of wrought- 

 iron. In summing up the results of the 

 entire series of experiments the commission 

 reports as follows : 



" The carbonic oxide, whose presence 

 has been proved when stoves of cast iron 

 are used, may arise from several difl"erent 

 causes: 1. The permeability of the stove 

 by that gas, which will pass from the in- 

 terior of the fire-pot to the exterior. 2. 

 The direct action of the oxygen of the air 

 upon the carbon of the cast-iron heated to 

 redness. 3. The decomposition of carbonic 

 acid contained in the air by its contact with 

 metal heated to redness. 4, The influence 

 of the organic dust naturally contained in 

 the air." The commission recommend that 

 all stoves and heating apparatus of cast- 

 iron, and even of wrought-iron, be lined 

 with fire-brick, or other substance, so as to 

 prevent their attaining a red heat. 



Soatli-Sea Surgery. — In some of the 

 South-Sea Islands a method of surgical 

 treatment is adopted in certain cases which 

 would bear away the palm, as a torturing 

 process, even from the dreaded moxa. The 

 following description of the South-Sea ope- 

 ration is from the London Medical Times : 

 " The wise men in these islands have invent- 

 ed a theory that headache, neuralgia, ver- 

 tigo, and other affections of the head, arise 

 from a crack in the skull, or from pressure of 

 the skull upon the brain. The remedy which 

 they have contrived consists in laying open 

 the scalp by a T-shaped incision, and then 

 gently scraping away the cranium itself 

 with a piece of glass until the dura mater 



