FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



283 



edge. To himself it had never seemed at all 

 intelligible how geology could cease to be 

 scientific when it touched upon human his- 

 tory. The fact that there was a poet or his- 

 torian to narrate the history of a period did 

 not take away this scientific character. We 

 must never forget that geology, going to the 

 earliest period of time when life first ap- 

 peared upon the earth, brought us down to 

 the present day. Volcanic changes of the 

 earth such as are taking place now, remains 

 of ancient action such as the marvelous lake 

 of lava in Hawaii, are just as much subjects 

 of geological research as if no reporter or 

 narrator existed to record their history. The 

 archajologist of medieval history and the 

 archaeologist who has gone before human 

 history and has helped the geologist to bring 

 into definite connection the epochs of the 

 world's existence, must all be welcomed as 

 scientific geologists. 



Adalteration with Antiseptics. — Special 

 attention is given in the second report on 

 Food Products of the Connecticut Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station to adulteration by 

 antiseptics. These substances are for the 

 most part, when taken in sufiicient quantities 

 and degrees of concentration, poisonous ; and 

 whether any one of them shall operate as a 

 harmless preventive or remedy, or as an un- 

 healthful or even fatal poison, to the con- 

 sumer of food and drink containing it, de- 

 pends upon the quantity and frequency of 

 the dose. A number of successful food pre- 

 servatives — such as sugar, alcohol, vinegar, 

 lactic acid, salt, smoke, spices, and " sweet 

 herbs " — are at once recognizable and known 

 by their taste or odoi". They are all com- 

 monly reckoned harmless to sound digestion 

 and good health when taken in moderation, 

 and are reputed to be unhealthful to certain 

 classes of invalids, or when taken in excess. 

 Within about twenty years several powerful 

 antiseptics have come into very extensive 

 and more or less surreptitious use, that are 

 not recognizable in food or drinks by either 

 taste or odor. These are salicylic acid, ben- 

 zoic acid, and borax or boric acid. Sali- 

 cylic acid, the essential ingredient of winter- 

 green and oil of birch, and benzoic acid, which 

 exists in various balsams and gum resins, in 

 the oils of marjoram, cassia, cinnamon, and 

 cloves, in vanilla, sweet flag, plums, and 



cranberries, are efficacious only in the free 

 state. Borax and boric acid are effective, 

 cheap, odorless, and tasteless when mixed 

 with food, and are much used. The testi- 

 mony is conflicting as to the effect of the 

 continued and frequent use of these preserv- 

 atives upon the health of consumers. There 

 are some falsifications which the public have 

 long tolerated and people are careless of, as 

 those of mustard, which is now sometimes 

 hard to find strong enough to make a plaster 

 of. " This kind of adulteration and the ly- 

 ing statements by which it is forced on the 

 public have so habituated people to poor ar- 

 ticles and low prices that purchasers of the 

 recent generations probably do not know, in 

 many cases, what genuine goods are, and do 

 not realize what waste of money as well as 

 loss of satisfaction there is in buying so- 

 called ' cheap ' wares, for which, consider- 

 ing the real value of the articles, they actu- 

 ally pay an exorbitant price." 



Variety in Tobacco Pipes. — The pipe is 

 treated by the Baron de Watteville as on the 

 point of vanishing from use, being about to 

 be superseded by the cigarette ; even the 

 Dutch, our author says, are abandoning their 

 pipes and smoking paper-wrapped stems in- 

 stead. There is evidently great exaggeration 

 in this assertion, for we meet evidence daily 

 in groups of fashionable smokers that the 

 pipe has not disappeared, and is in no danger 

 of going out of use. M. de Watteville's 

 study of pipes nevertheless presents many 

 features of interest. Consider the materials 

 of which they are made, and the variety in 

 their shapes. White clay is the predomi- 

 nant material for the bowls in England and 

 the adjacent continental countries, red clay 

 in the Mediterranean bas-in, black clay in Af- 

 rica, porcelain and elm root in the Germanic 

 countries, stone among some savage tribes, 

 and wood almost everywhere ; but where 

 wood is not to be obtained, as in the arctic 

 regions, fossil ivory, whales' bones, or walrus 

 tusks are used. The stems are of wood or 

 horn, of more or less artistic shapes among 

 Europeans ; rough ox horn in South Africa, 

 antelope horn along the sources of the Nile, 

 cherry in Hungary and Armenia, jasmine in 

 Persia, bamboo in hot countries, gold, silver, 

 or wood or leather trimmed with precious 

 materials for the lips of wealthy Orientals, 



