192 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. |Vol. ix. 



or rhinoceros, though theses huj^e beasts are known from dis- 

 coveries made at Brentford, Crayford, and other localities in the 

 Thames Valley, to have been in times long gone by the com- 

 panions of the Thames Valley mammoths. The specimen in 

 this collection which has specially attracted the attention of gen- 

 tlemen learned in the study of fossil osteology is the terminal 

 point of an elephant tusk, unusually sharp :it the point and 

 highly polished, and from the surface of which a very thin skin 

 of ivory peels off, exposing a strongly and regularly lotigitudi- 

 nally channelled surface beneath. 



A New Chemical Industry. — A lecture was, a short time 

 ago, delivered by Prof. Roscoe, at the Royal Institution, on a 

 new chemical industry which has originated and developed in 

 France to a considerable extent within the last two or three 

 years. M. Vincent, repetiteur at the Ecole Centrale at Paris, 

 and directing chemist of the great distillery works at Courrieres, 

 has succeeded in putting to good use what has hitherto been a 

 waste product. Instead of burning the residue of beet-root mo- 

 lasses — after the alcohol has been distilled from it — in the open 

 air for the purpose of obtaining the potash salts it coutains, he 

 performs the calcination in closed retorts, in. order to secure the 

 products of distillation. Among those he found a large quantity 

 of trimethylamine, which can be easily worked up into chloride 

 of methyl. This gaseous body, reduced through pressure to a 

 liquid, is an excellent material for frigorific purposes. By its own 

 evaporation the bulk of the liquid acquires a temperature of 

 — 23*^ C, and when the evaporation is assisted by the passage of 

 dry air through the liquid the temperature is brought as low as 

 — 55° C. Prof. Boscoe was able to freeze in this way a mass of 

 mercury of several pounds weight into a hard solid, which he 

 hammered like a piece of lead. The other and more important 

 use of chloride of methyl is in the manufacture of those beauti- 

 ful dyes known as methylated anilines. They had been known 

 before, but the cost of their production was so high that their 

 consumption was only limited. The cheapening of the chloride 

 of methyl has greatly extended and will continue to extend the 

 preparation of those colours. — Athcna'um. 



Publislied July 30, 1879. 



