NOTES. 



287 



tion of this race, which had been too much 

 influenced by accounts he had received from 

 a tribe at war with the cannibals. He had 

 said that in their villages he had found quar- 

 ters of human flesh exposed for sale ; that 

 they killed and ate their prisoners of war, 

 and that they sold the bodies of their own 

 dead who had died of disease to their neigh- 

 bors. M. de Brazza denied the truth of 

 such accounts. As a proof that the Fans 

 had kindly and generous sentiments, he 

 told how a Fan chief had been kind to him 

 when he was obliged to leave his people 

 sick in the bush. He owed his life to the 

 Fan chief, and he should always be grateful 

 to him and his people. He wished, there- 

 fore, to do all he could to remove the pre- 

 judice against the Fans which had been 

 excited by Du Chaillu. They were a very 

 generous, courageous people. It was true 

 they were cannibals — that they ate their 

 prisoners of war ; but it was with them a 

 religious idea, for they believed that in eat- 

 ing the heart of a brave man the courage 

 of the dead passed into themselves. M. de 

 Brazza also gave an interesting sketch of 

 the Akkas, a dwarf race he found scattered 

 up and down among the different peoples, 

 like what the Jews or the gypsies were in 

 Europe. The height of the Akkas was 

 from three to four feet. 



Raising Snnlten Vessels. — In the Plotzen 

 Lake, which is not far from Berlin, and the 

 depth of which is very considerable, reach- 

 ing in some parts to twenty-eight metres, 

 an interesting attempt has been made to 

 raise sunken vessels. The method, which 

 is the invention of Herr Eidner, a Vienna 

 civil engineer, consists in applying carbonic 

 acid in the following manner : In an empty 

 balloon a bottle half filled with sulphuric 

 acid, surrounded with Bullrich's salt, is 

 fixed ; the bottle is destroyed by turning a 

 screw, and the two substances mix and pro- 

 duce carbonic acid, which fills the balloon. 

 It is obvious that, when this apparatus is 

 brought into operation in the hull of a sunk- 

 en ship, the effect must be, if a sufficient 

 number of balloons are filled, to raise the 

 vessel. In the experiments on the Plot- 

 zen Lake, a small vessel or boat weigh- 

 ing several hundred-weight, was first sunk. 

 A diver then went down with the necessary 

 apparatus, which he set in operation in the 



interior of the ship. Hardly had he done 

 so before the vessel began to rise to the 

 surface, where it was maintained by the 

 balloon. In a second experiment five heavy 

 sacks filled with sand were thrown over- 

 board, in a part of the lake which was six- 

 teen metres deep. The diver descended, 

 fastened all the sacks together, and, fixing 

 the balloon apparatus to them, set it going, 

 with the effect that the whole of the sacks 

 were brought up to the surface. 



Petroleum in Iron-making. — The suc- 

 cessful employment of petroleum as a fuel in 

 the manufacture of iron, has, according to 

 the "Engineering and Mining Journal," 

 been accomplished by a process invented by 

 Dr. C. J. Fames, and now in practical opera- 

 tion at Titusville, Pennsylvania. The pe- 

 troleum is vaporized by means of highly 

 heated steam, thrown into a chamber in 

 which the oil is caused to trickle over a se- 

 ries of horizontal shelves ; and the mixture 

 is then driven onward to the combustion- 

 chamber, where it is ignited and forced into 

 the furnaces by the air-blasts which it en- 

 counters at this point. " The evident advan- 

 tages," says the "Engineering and Mining 

 Journal," " of petroleum-fuel, are the perfect 

 control under which the heat is held ; the 

 extremely high calorific intensity of this ' wa- 

 ter-gas ' ; and the freedom of the fuel from 

 any elements injurious to the iron. It is 

 claimed that the work can be performed 

 much quicker, and the quality of the pro- 

 duct can be made much more uniform and 

 of higher grade, than can be secured with 

 coal-fuel." 



NOTES. 



According to Professor Lintner, Presi- 

 dent of the Entomological Club, the study 

 of entomology is making very gratifying 

 progress in this country ; collections are 

 multiplying, and the literature of the sub- 

 ject is growing rapidly. The Club has 

 compiled a list of persons engaged in the 

 study of entomology in the United States ; 

 it already contains eight hundred and thirty- 

 five names. 



Dr. Krummel, of Gottingen, estimates 

 the mean depth of the sea at 1,877 fathoms, 

 and then makes a comparison of the vol- 

 ume of the land above sea-level with the 

 volume of the sea. Accepting Leipoldt's 



