NOTES. 



287 



Australia. But the growers seem to have 

 become careless as to the treatment of their 

 vineyards and the quality of the wine they 

 produce, and the exportation has fallen off. 

 A few samples of wines were exhibited in 

 the Canadian court. In late years much at- 

 tention has been bestowed in Canada upon 

 grape-growing and wine-making ; and, in 

 1881, four million pounds of grapes were 

 raised in the Dominion, of which nine tenths 

 were grown in the province of Ontario. The 

 wines exhibited were found sound and pleas- 

 ant, and enjoy a local reputation ; but they 

 were hardly known outside of the Dominion 

 before the Exhibition. 



Qualities of Sewage-Farm Milk. — Dr. 



Carpenter, of Croydon, denied, during a re- 

 cent discussion in the Society of Arts, that 

 the milk produced on a farm irrigated by 

 sewage was contaminated or less wholesome 

 than other milk. When he became acquaint- 

 ed with the Croydon sewage-farm, they had 

 difficulty in getting rid of the milk, because 

 of the prejudice against it. But by judi- 

 cious management the prejudice was worn 

 out. The speaker knew, from personal ex- 

 perience, that the children who took the 

 milk were never troubled with any of those 

 illnesses which were said to be due to bad 

 milk, and there were never any complaints 

 of the milk, which was delivered once a 

 day, becoming sour. That was a proof of 

 its power of being assimilated by the body, 

 and that it was of a perfectly desirable 

 character in point of health, he knew from 

 examination of the families who took it. 

 They had now no difficulty in Croydon with 

 regard to the disposal of their milk from 

 the sewage-farm. 



NOTES. 



A DISCUSSION and analysis published by 

 Professor F. G. Xovy, of Ann Arbor, Jlichi- 

 gan, in the " Pharmaceutische Rundschau," 

 go to show that the new anaesthetic, stcno- 

 carpine, or glcditschine, which has attracted 

 considerable attention, is nothing but a mixt- 

 ure of cocaine and atropine. More exactly, 

 Professor Novy determines it to consist, es- 

 sentially, of six per cent of cocaine hydro- 

 chloride ; fifty per cent of atropine sulphate, 

 and about a third of one per cent of sali- 

 cylic acid, the latter being used as a pre- 

 servative. 



A CO-RESPONDENT in "Whitbv, Ontario, 

 calls our attention to an omission — of con- 

 siderable importance in countries liable to 

 extreme cold — which he has observed in Dr. 

 von Xussbaum's article on " Freezing," in 

 the September number of the " ilonthly." 

 In the direction for rubbing with snow for 

 the restoration of frozen parts, the author 

 has omitted to state that the snow used 

 should be of a temperature but little, if 

 any, below the freezing-point. It has hap- 

 pened, through ignorance of this particu- 

 lar, that snow has been applied in cases of 

 frost-bite of a temperature some degrees 

 below zero — with the result, of course, of 

 freezing the injured part still more. 



In a public lecture on " Electric Light- 

 ing," delivered during the meeting of the 

 British Association, Mr. George Forbes, 

 after remarking that there were probably 

 more than 300,000 arc-lamps in use in the 

 United States, said that the Americans 

 were also getting the start of the English 

 in electric railways and tramways, and gen- 

 erally in the application of electricity to 

 motive-power. 



Dr. C. U. F. Peters, Astronomer of Ham- 

 ilton College, has had conferred upon him, 

 by the President of the French Eepublic, the 

 cross of an officer of the Legion of Honor, in 

 recognition of the services which he has ren- 

 dered to science. 



Mr. C. E. Monroe presented, in the Amer- 

 ican Association, the results of some experi- 

 ments, in which blocks of gun-cotton, after 

 having been stamped with certain letters, 

 were exploded, lettered side down, on flat 

 pieces of wrought-iron. When the letters 

 on the blocks were stamped in relief, they 

 appeared in relief on the iron after the ex- 

 plosion ; but when they were sunken in the 

 blocks, they also appeared sunken in the 

 iron. 



Mr. William L. Wakeler tells, in the 

 " Scientific American," how he once, in 

 Georgia, saw a snake climb a tree in a very 

 curious manner. The snake was a " coach- 

 whip," and, frightened by the demonstra- 

 tions of his observer, made a rush for a 

 water-oak, the long branches of which came 

 down to within four or five feet of the 

 ground ; " then rising, until he seemed al- 

 most to stand on the end of his tail, he 

 shot up like an arrow through the branches, 

 getting his grip entirely by lateral pressure 

 and not by coiling around the branches." 



Professor Locis Soret, President of 

 the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences, has 

 remarked on the aesthetic influence of reit- 

 erated impressions as illustrated by the rep-' 

 etition of the same design, both in sym- 

 metrical forms, and in lined patterns, such 

 as we see in tapestry, furniture, or build- 

 ings, whether of the same dimensions or of 



