962 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



I mention it only for the j^nrpose of entering my protest against 

 any disparagement of the stndies wliich I would recommend as 

 preparatory to college, to be deduced from the consideration that 

 they have upon them the taint of possible usefulness. 

 Adjourned. 



American Institute Polytechnic Assocpation, ? 



Ajwil 25, 1867. S 



Prof S. D. Tillman in the chair ; J. Wyatt Reid, Esq., Sec'y- 

 The chairman presented his usual budget of scientific news, as 



follows : 



Effect of Celibacy. 



Dr. Stark, of the Register Ofiice, Scotland, has found, on com- 

 paring the vital statistics of married and unmarried men who have 

 lived beyond the age of twentj^-five, that the average life of mar- 

 ried men is a little more than sixty years, while that of bachelors is 

 less than forty-eight. 



Firing Guns by Electricity. 

 The well known method of firing gunpowder with a platinum 

 wire, made red hot by a galvanic current, has been applied to 

 guns in France — the only novelty being in carrying two small 

 electric batteries in the stock, the two connecting wires of which 

 emerge near the breech, and are so arranged as to be connected 

 when a current is required to explode the powder. 



Mourning Candles. 

 Bottger states that the mourning candles used in Germany are 

 made by heating paraffine with the shells of the Anacardian nut, 

 which contain a Ijlack resin soluble in parafiine. While the paraf- 

 fine is liquid, it is of a dark brown color, but on becoming solid 

 it is jet black. When the candles made of such colored parafiine 

 have a very thin wick, the}^ burn without giving ofi:' any unplea- 

 sant odor or vapor. 



Test for Starch or Grape Sugars. 

 Picric acid, one of the derivatives of phenol, formed by the 

 action of nitric acid on phenic acid, is of a yellow color. A few 

 drops of a solution of picric acid in 250 parts of water is added to 

 a solution of this kind of sugar (glucose) containing a little caustic 

 soda, and heated to 90°. The mixture, when boiled, assumes u 



