FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



285 



parts cobalt and twenty to twenty-five 

 aluminum is straw-yellow, inclining to 

 brown; when just formed it is exter- 

 nally hard and scratches glass, but is 

 easily broken with a hammer, and falls 

 to a powder in a few days. An alloy of 

 eighty-two parts nickel and eighteen 

 aluminum has a pronounced straw-yel- 

 low color, is as hard as tempered steel, 

 and resists the blow of a hammer. The 

 fracture, close-grained, is that of steel 

 or bell metal. It is susceptible of a fine 

 polish, is stable, and keeps its color. 

 Though interesting on account of their 

 colors, these alloys, except that of nick- 

 el, are not suitable for any use. 



The Chemistry of Sausages. — 

 The Lancet is authority for the follow- 

 ing: " The composition of the sausage is 

 not only complex, but it is often ob- 

 scure. It is supposed to be a compound 

 of minced beef and pork. Abroad, how- 

 ever, the sausage is compounded of a 

 much wider range of substances. These 

 include brains, liver, and horseflesh. 

 Occasionally they do not contain meat 

 at all, but only bread tinged with red 

 oxide of iron and mixed with a varying 

 proportion of fat. Horseflesh is rich in 

 glycogen, and this fact enables its pres- 

 ence in sausage meat to be detected 

 with some amount of certainty. The 

 test, which depends on a color reaction, 

 with iodine has recently been more care- 

 fully studied and with more satisfac- 

 tory results, so that the presence of five 

 per cent of horseflesh can be detected. 

 At present there is no legal provision 

 for a standard in regard to the com- 

 position of sausages, but clearly there 

 ought to be. Limitations should be laid 

 down as to the amount of bread used, 

 as to the actual proportion of meat sub- 

 stances present, and as to the coloring 

 matters added to give an attractive ap- 

 pearance of fresh meat. Sausages are 

 extremely liable to undergo decompo- 

 sition and become poisonous, owing to 

 the elaboration of toxic substances dur- 

 ing the putrefactive process. Bad or 

 rancid fat is very liable to alter the 

 character of a sausage for the worse. 

 Thus in some instances the use of rancid 

 lard has rendered the sausage after a 

 time quite phosphorescent, an appear- 

 ance which indicates, of course, an un- 

 desirable change. The smoked sausage 

 is a much safer article of diet than the 



unsmoked, since the curing process pre- 

 serves the meat substance against de- 

 composition by reason of the empyreu- 

 matic bodies present in the wood smoke 

 which is used for this purpose." 



Photographing Papuan Chil- 

 dren. — Many savages dislike to have 

 their pictures taken, some being re- 

 strained by motives of superstition; but 

 in New Guinea Professor Semon found 

 being photographed a great joke for all 

 the boys and girls. He had much trou- 

 ble in isolating a single individual, so 

 as not to get thirty or forty persons 

 into his picture instead of the one he 

 wished to immortalize. " Wishing," he 

 says, " to portray one young girl of un- 

 commonly good looks, I separated her 

 from the rest, gave her a favorable po- 

 sition, and adjusted the lens, surround- 

 ed all the while by a crowd of people 

 behind and beside me, the children 

 cheering, the women most, ardently at- 

 tentive, the men benevolently smiling. 

 Evidently my subject was proud of the 

 distinction she enjoyed and the atten- 

 tion vouchsafed her. Quite suddenly, 

 however, this simple savage, untaught 

 as she was and innocent of the laws of 

 reticence and prudishness, became con- 

 vulsed with shame, covered her eyes 

 with her hands, and valiantly resisted 

 every attempt to make her stand for- 

 ward as before. At the same time I 

 noticed that the hue of her features 

 changed, the brown of her face becom- 

 ing darker and deeper than before, a 

 phenomenon easily explained by the fact 

 of the blood rising into her head. Had 

 she been a brown girl we would have 

 said that she blushed. At all events, 

 the physiological process was the same 

 as that which forces us to blush." At 

 another time, when the author had got 

 two little girls into position to be pho- 

 tographed, their mothers came up and 

 forbade his taking them that day, but 

 promised to present them on the mor- 

 row. On the next day " both the little 

 angels were solemnly brought to meet 

 us nearly smothered in ornaments, their 

 hair decorated with feathers and combs, 

 their ears with tortoise-shell pieces, 

 their little throats surrounded by plates 

 of mother-of-pearl and chains of dingo 

 teeth, legs and arms hung with rings 

 and shells, teeth, and all sorts of 

 network. . . . Here, again, one may 



