AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. 213 



charcoal resting upon it. .These tumblers were in this state handed round to the members, 

 who ascertained the perfect manner in which the sewage matter was thus rendered no longer 

 offensive to the smell. 



Dr. J. Stenhouse, of England, has recently published, in the Journal of the Society of Arts, 

 the following interesting information respecting the properties of charcoal. He says : "Mr. 

 Turnbull, a well-known chemical manufacturer of Scotland, about nine months ago, placed 

 the bodies of two dogs in a wooden box, on a layer of charcoal powder a few inches in depth, 

 and covered them over with a quantity of the same material. Though the box was quite 

 open, and kept in his laboratory, no effluvium was ever perceptible ; and on examining the 

 bodies of the animals, at the end of six months, scarcely any thing remained of them except 

 the bones. Mr. Turnbull sent me a portion of the charcoal powder which had been most 

 closely in contact with the bodies of the dogs. I submitted it for examination to one of my 

 pupils, Mr. Turner, who found it contained comparatively little ammonia, not a trace of sul- 

 phuretted hydrogen, but very appreciable quantities of nitric, sulphuric acids, with acid phos- 

 phate of lime. 



"Mr. Turner subsequently, about three months ago, buried two rats in about two inches 

 of charcoal powder, and a few days afterwards the body of a full-grown cat was similarly 

 treated. Though the bodies of these animals are now in a highly putrid state, not the 

 slightest odor is perceptible in the laboratory. 



"From this short statement of facts, the utility of charcoal powder as a means of prevent- 

 ing noxious effluvia from church-yards, and from dead bodies in other situations, such as on 

 board a ship, is sufficiently evident. Covering a church-yard, to the depth of from two to 

 three inches, with coarsely-powdered charcoal, would prevent any putrid exhalations ever 

 finding their way into the atmosphere. Charcoal powder also greatly favors the rapid 

 decomposition of the dead bodies with which it is in contact, so that in the course of six or 

 eight months little is left except the bones. 



" In all the modern systems of chemistry, such, for instance, as the last edition of Turner's 

 Elements, charcoal is described as possessing antiseptic properties, while the very reverse is 

 the fact. Common salt, nitre, corrosive sublimate, arsenimis uci'l, alcohol, camphor, creosote, 

 and most essential oils, are certainly antiseptic substances, and therefore retard the decay 

 of animal and vegetable matters. Charcoal, on the contrary, as we have just seen, greatly 

 facilitates the oxidation, and consequently the decomposition, of any organic substances with 

 which it is in contact. It is, therefore, the very opposite of an antiseptic." 



Does Sea Water kill Seeds? 



A QUESTION which has an important bearing upon the actual or possible dispersion of many 

 species over the large geographical area which they are found to occupy, and therefore upon 

 the problem whether the same organic being was created at one point, or at several, or many 

 widely-separated points, on the face of the globe. It ^commonly believed and stated that 

 seeds those of maritime plants excepted will not gen-^ nate after exposure to salt water ; 

 and so general is the belief, that no one, so far as we Is r, has made the experiment until 

 now, when the distinguished naturalist, Mr. Darwin, hjphown that seeds of various kinds 

 will germinate promptly after prolonged immersion in sea water. The account of his simple 

 but well-devised experiments is given in the London Gardeners' Chronicle for 1855, as follows : 



"As I had no idea when I began, whether or not a single week's immersion would kill all 

 the seeds, I at first took only a few, selecting them almost by chance from the different great 

 natural families ; but I am now trying a set chosen on philosophical principles. The sea water 

 has been made artificially with salt. The seeds were placed out of doors in the shade, in bot- 

 tles holding from two to four ounces each : the mean temperature being from 44 to 48 F. 

 Most of the seeds swelled in the water, and some of them slightly colored it, and each kind 

 gave to it its own peculiar odor. The water which contained the cabbage and radish seeds 

 became putrid, and smelt quite offensively ; and it is surprising that seeds, as was the case 

 with the radish, could have resisted so contaminating an influence ; and as the water became 

 putrid before I had thought of this contingency, it was not renewed. I also placed seeds in 



