192 [the CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vii. 



The Bulletin de la SocUU Chimique de Paris, amongst many 

 ^chemical papers of much interest, draws some attention to a 

 waterproof glue, which promises to be of considerable value. The 

 action of light in rendering the size on paper, when it is coated 

 with the bichromate of potassa, insoluble was first noticed by Mr. 

 Mongo Ponton, and the principle has been applied to several of 

 the photographic printing processes. Gum, glue or gelatine may 

 thus be rendered insoluble, and the action takes place, though 

 slowly, in the dark. A concentrated solution of the bichromate 

 of potassa is kept in the dark, and some of it is added to boiled 

 gelatine. Anything glued with this may, after a little time be 

 washed with hot water without effect. A parchment paper, used 

 for wrapping the pea-sausages of the Grerman soldier, is prepared 

 by M. J. Stinde with this chromatized gelatine. 



During an unusually heavy snow-storm in Stockholm, which 

 continued for five or six days in December, 1871, Nordenskjold 

 detected, even in those portions of the snow which fell latest, a 

 black carbonaceous powder, charged with very small spangles of 

 metallic iron. He has since found similar substances in the 

 snows of the Arctic Kegions and from the heart of Finland. It 

 will be curious to learn from the analysis, which he has recently 

 promised, whether the iron in this cosmical dust is similar to 

 meteoric iron. 



Attention has been called, by Prof. B. Silliman, to the probable 

 occurrence of small diamonds in the sands left in the sluices of 

 hydraulic washings in California. A microscopic examination of 

 a sample of these sands, from Cherokee, in Butte County, reveal- 

 ed the existence of numerous crystals of hyacinth or zircon, 

 associated with crystals of topaz, fragments of quartz, black grains 

 of chromite and titanic iron-ore, and a few small masses of a highly 

 r.'fracting substance, which, from its physical and chemical char- 

 acters, is believed to be true diamond. The occurrence of 

 diamonds in California has long been known, although not under 

 these circumstances. 



