572 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



premises at St. Petersburg Place, Bayswa- 

 tcr, for three months, and when examined 

 on October 2-ith the butter was as sound 

 and sweet as when first put in, although 

 during the whole time it had practically 

 been exposed to the air, nothing having 

 been done to exclude the latter from the fir- 

 kin. Without treatment it would undoubted- 

 ly have become wholly putrid in that length 

 of time ; nothing, however, could be detect- 

 ed by either smell or taste to indicate that 

 the sample had suffered the slightest dete- 

 rioration, as it possessed all the qualities of 

 flavor and firmness of butter churned the 

 day before. Experts in different parts of 

 the country were furnished samples, and all 

 pronounced the preservation wonderful ; 

 they were of the opinion, however, that the 

 best, newly-made butter has a peculiar aro- 

 ma that is not quite equaled in the pre- 

 served butter, while the latter was consid- 

 ered a little "dead," a defect that is re- 

 moved by the addition of one per cent, of 

 salt. The cost of the preservative does not 

 exceed one halfpenny per pound of butter ; 

 it is worked in directly after churning, and 

 requires no further care or attention, except 

 that, like other butter, it should be kept in 

 a moderately cool place. 



Arc Bacteria found ia Healthy Animals ? 



—In the " Journal of Anatomy and Physi- 

 ology" for April, 18Y8, Messrs. Chiene and 

 Ewart asserted that bacteria did not exist in 

 the organs of healthy living animals. In the 

 August number of the " Journal fur Prak- 

 tische Chemie" Messrs. Neucki and Gracosa 

 urge the affirmative side of the question. 

 The chief points of the latter's argument we 

 abstract from a recent copy of " Nature " : 

 Dr. Burdon-Sanderson plunged an organ 

 from a newly-killed animal into paraffine 

 heated to 110", it was allowed to cool and 

 then covered with Venetian turpentine to 

 still further protect it from outside infec- 

 tion. Two days after, the organ was found 

 in a clotted and slightly cooked condition 

 on the outside, but bacteria were present in 

 the center. To this, Messrs. Chiene and 

 Ewart replied that the bacteria-germs fell 

 upon the organ in the interval between its 

 extraction and the moment of plunging it 

 into paraffino. This was accordingly guard- 

 ed against by an antiseptic method, and three 



days afterward, when the specimens were 

 examined, no bacteria were discovered. The 

 conclusion, therefore, of Messrs. Chiene and 

 Ewart was that, if the organs were treated 

 antiseptically after death, neither bacteria 

 nor their germs will be found ; and hence 

 that no bacteria-germs exist in living healthy 

 organs. Messrs. Neucki and Gracosa, in 

 order to prove the contrary, filled a large 

 glass test-tube with mercury, closed it with 

 a slip of glass, and inverted it in a vessel 

 containing mercury. The vessel was then 

 heated until the tube was one third filled 

 with vapor of mercury. It was then allowed 

 to cool ; the quicksilver in the tube again 

 condensed ; and when that in the outer jar 

 was heated to 120° it was covered with a 

 five per cent, solution of carbolic acid. A 

 portion of an internal organ from an animal 

 recently killed was brought by means of a 

 pair of tweezers under the mouth of the 

 tube, up which it ascended. The apparatus 

 was kept for several days at a temperature 

 of 40° ; and bacteria were subsequently 

 found in the specimen. All experiments of 

 this kind led to the conclusion that bacteria 

 exist in the organs of living healthy ani- 

 mals. 



Antiquity of Man. — Professor Boyd Daw- 

 kins, in a paper on the antiquity of man, 

 read before the Sheffield meeting of the 

 British Association, said that when he ex- 

 amined the great divisions of the Tertia- 

 ry period in their relation to the highest 

 forms of life, he was confronted by the fol- 

 lowing important facts : In the Eocene age 

 thei-e was not a single species of placental 

 mammal. There is not a single well-authen- 

 ticated case of any mammalian species, now 

 living on the earth, having lived in the Mi- 

 ocene age, .although the French archccolo- 

 gists claim that man lived then. In the Pli- 

 ocene age one or two living species make 

 their appearance. Passing to the Pleis- 

 tocene or Glacial period, living species are 

 very abundant, extinct species are rare. It 

 is in this period that man appears, over an 

 extended area. He is a mere hunter, not a 

 ■farmer or possessor of wild animals. The 

 prehistoric period which succeeded the Pleis- 

 tocene was characterized by the absence of 

 the extinct species of mammalia, with the 

 single exception of the Irish elk. At this 



