THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



treats bleaching-powder with an acid, and 

 simultaneously passes air through the mix- 

 ture, so that chlorine and hydrochlorous acid 

 vapors are mechanically carried off; the 

 resulting gases are passed through an alka- 

 line solution in such proportions as to satu- 

 rate part or the whole of the alkali, or to 

 supersaturate it at will. The resulting li- 

 quid is said to be sufficiently stable to be 

 kept without change for two or three 

 months; it can readily be prepared of a 

 density of 30° Beaume, and acts as a 

 bleacher without requiring any acidulation, 

 and for many purposes is said to be supe- 

 rior to the ordinary bleaching-vat. The new 

 product, to which the inventor has given 

 the faciful name of chlorozone, is used to a 

 considerable extent in Paris, and works for 

 tts manufacture on a large scale have been 

 erected at Warrington. 



Effects of Excessive Tea-drinking.— W. 



J. Morton, M. D., of New York, gives in 

 the "Journal of Nervous and Mental Dis- 

 ease" an account of investigations which 

 he has made on the toxic effects of tea. 

 They were carried on in the cases of five 

 tea-tasters suffering from disease who came 

 under his care, and in observations of his 

 own symptoms during a week in which he 

 subjected himself to special treatment with 

 tea for purposes of experiment. From the 

 whole series of observations he draws the 

 conclusions that — 1. With tea, as with any 

 potent drug, there is a proper and an improp- 

 er dose ; 2. In moderation, tea is a mental 

 and bodily stimulant of a most agreeable 

 nature, followed by no harmful reaction. It 

 produces contentment of mind, allays hunger 

 and bodily weariness, and increases the dis- 

 position and the capacity for work ; 3. Taken 

 immoderately, it leads to a very serious 

 group of symptoms, such as headache, ver- 

 tigo, heat and flushings of body, ringing in 

 the ears, mental dullness and confusion, 

 tremulousness, " nervousness," sleepless- 

 ness, apprehension of evil, exhaustion of 

 mind and body, with disinclination to men- 

 tal and physical exertion, increased and ir- 

 regular action of the heart, increased res- 

 piration. Each of the above s}Tnptom3 is 

 produced by tea taken in immoderate quan- 

 tities, irrespective of dyspepsia, or hypo- 

 chondria, or hyperemia ; 4. Immoderate 



tea-drinking, continued for a considerable 

 time, with great certainty produces dyspep- 

 sia; 5. The immediate mental symptoms 

 produced by tea are not to be attributed to 

 dyspepsia; 6. Tea retards the waste or 

 retrograde metamorphosis of tissue, and 

 thereby reduces the demand for food. It 

 also diminishes the amount of urine se- 

 creted ; v. Many of the symptoms of im- 

 moderate tea-drinking are such as may oc- 

 cur without suspicion of tea being their 

 cause, and we find many people taking tea 

 to relieve the discomforts which its abuse is 

 producing. 



Antiquity of the Tobacco-Pipe.— The dis- 

 covery of large numbers of pipes, apparent- 

 ly of considerable age, in Great Britain and 

 parts of the Continent of Eui'ope, has given 

 rise to new and extravagant conjectures as 

 to the antiquity of the tobacco-pipe in Eu- 

 rope. From an article in " The American 

 Antiquarian," by Mr. Edwin A. Barber, we 

 learn that these ancient pipes are very small, 



j and are found in great numbers in the Brit- 

 ish Isles, where they are known as fairy- 

 pipes, Celtic or elfin pipes, Dane's pipes, 



j Mab pipes, old man's pipes, and Carl's 



' pipes. A number of them have been found 

 so near to Eoman remains as to induce the 

 belief that they are Roman relics ; but other 



' undoubtedly modern remains have been 

 found in a similar connection. The pipes 

 resemble modern ones in shape, and often 

 bear manufacturers' marks, which make it 

 practicable to estimate their age. The old- 

 est of them are supposed to have been 

 made during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

 Probably the oldest illustration of a tobac- 

 co-pipe in Great Britain is in a carving on 

 a chimney in the keep of Cawdor Castle, 

 where among the devices are a mermaid 

 playing the harp, a monkey blowing a horn, 

 a cat playing a fiddle, and a fox smoking a 

 tobacco-pipe. This stone bears the date of 

 1610. Mr. Jewitt suggests, in his "Ce- 

 ramic Art in Great Britain," that herbs and 

 leaves were smoked medicinally long before 

 the period at which tobacco is believed to 

 have been introduced, and that pipes may 

 have been in use for this purpose before 

 " the weed " was known. British pipes 

 may be classified according to age, with 

 some degree of certainty ; by form, as they 



