690 



TURKEY. 



TYNDALL ON HAZE AND DUST. 



ferred, because it costs little labor and expense, 

 and, therefore, suits the habits of an indolent 

 people. The population, about 1,100,000, in- 

 creases by only 4,000 a year. This unsatisfac- 

 tory progress is attributed in part to the pub- 

 lic health having become extensively under- 

 mined by syphilitic disease, and to epidemics 

 generated by malaria, but still more, to the cus- 

 tom of marrying youths' of immature age to 

 women much older, and who have passed their 

 best years, the motive being an unwillingness 

 to dispense earlier with the labor of a daughter 

 in the household and the field. The Servians 

 have much degenerated in forty years, passed 

 under a political guarantee which inspires reck- 

 lessness ; in some districts, the debasement, 

 both moral and physical, is visible in the looks 

 of the people. Their martial and independent 

 spirit still exists to a great extent ; but it may 

 be doubted if Servia could now muster the 

 number of fighting-men she did during the war 

 of independence. The proportion of town 

 population was but 86,841 at the census of 

 1859. It is a nation of herdsmen. Society 

 furnishes few of the elements of a town-life, 

 there being no manufactures, little traffic, and 

 trades in their infancy. One of the chief aims 

 of the Government has been, for some time 

 past, a municipal reform, which, with a view 

 chiefly to military organization, will have a cen- 

 tralizing effect, withdrawing the inhabitants 

 from the forests and mountains, in which, as 

 retreats from tyranny, there was a tendency 

 to gather or disperse in former times. Pigs 

 are the great product of the nation; about 

 200,000 are exported every year to Hungary,' 

 but it is a precarious trade. The breed of oxen 

 and sheep requires much improvement. The 

 amount of litigation about land is enormous ; 

 but gradually, through the operation of mort- 

 gages and then sales of the land, the class of 

 squatters is giving place to that of day labor- 

 ers. It is very important to give this people 

 a taste for labor. Such is their inertness, that 

 their houses are, for the most part, built and 

 repaired for them by itinerant masons and car- 

 penters from Macedonia and Albania, about 

 5,000 of whom pass and repass the frontier 

 every year, levying a heavy self-imposed tax 

 (for their savings are computed at 50,000 a 

 year) on a poor but indolent population. The 

 foreign trade appears to be almost stationary, 

 little more than about 500,000 on each side; 

 the exports higher than the imports. The re- 

 sources of the people have been taxed by mili- 

 tary preparations and armaments, interfering 

 with and discouraging industry. The immi- 

 gration has consisted chiefly of Turkish and 

 Austrian refugees and outcasts. The principal 

 inducement to European settlers generally 

 would be the cheapness and fertility of the 

 soil ; but they would have to provide themselves 

 with labor ; they would find markets not easily 

 accessible, and they could only hold in their 

 own right as naturalized Servians. 

 The session of the Skuptschina (Legislative 



Assembly) was opened by the members of the 

 regency on June 25th. The presiding member, 

 in his speech from the throne, said : u It would 

 be incumbent upon the Skuptschina to decide 

 whether a new constitution was a necessity for 

 the country. The charter of 1838, being merely 

 a grant imposed by the sovereign, had long 

 since failed to satisfy the wants of the people. 

 In case the Skuptschina should resolve upon 

 introducing a constitutional regime, the latter 

 would come into force after being duly sanc- 

 tioned by the regency. This legislative body 

 discussed anew constitution, which was adopted 

 in August. It proclaims equality of all citizens 

 before the law, the principle of ministerial re- 

 sponsibility, liberty of the press, independence 

 of the judges, and autonomy of the communi- 

 ties. The Prince and the Skuptschina consti- 

 tute together the legislative power, The dep- 

 uties are chosen every three years. The Sen- 

 ate continues as a consultative body. The 

 throne is hereditary in the male line of the 

 dynasty Obrenowitsch. 



TYNDALL ON HAZE AND DUST. One 

 of the most remarkable, and, perhaps, one of 

 the most prolific discoveries of modern science, 

 was announced and described by Prof. Tyn- 

 dall in a lecture recently delivered at the 

 Royal Institution, London, briefly noticed in 

 the Pall Mall Gazette. The subject of the 

 lecture, which was illustrated by a series of 

 very beautiful experiments or demonstrations, 

 was the very familiar one of " Dust and Dis- 

 ease," and its object was to show the proba- 

 bility of an intimate connection between at- 

 mospheric dust and epidemic diseases. Every- 

 body knows that whenever a direct ray of 

 sunshine crosses a shaded room its direction 

 is made manifest by a line of apparent vapor. 

 Looking at this vapor, it is seen to consist of 

 innumerable particles of dust, which float in 

 the atmosphere, and, catching and reflecting 

 the sunshine, are rendered visible. 



In the course of some beautiful experiments 

 on the decomposition of vapors by light, Dr. 

 Tyndall found it to be essential that he should 

 get rid of this floating dust. He strained the 

 air through a tube filled with bits of glass 

 wetted with concentrated sulphuric acid, and 

 through another tube filled with bits of mar- 

 ble wetted with caustic potash ; he even made 

 it bubble through the liquid acid and potash 

 solution, but still the dust particles remained 

 in it. He tried various other ways of strain- 

 ing out this dust, but none of them succeeded. 

 At length he passed the air on its way to the 

 tube over the flame of a spirit-lamp, and at 

 once every particle of dust disappea-rd. It 

 was, therefore, organic matter, and the flame 

 had burned it. 



Passing the air a little more quickly over 

 the flame, a fine blue cloud appeared in the 

 tube the smoke of the dust-particles. The 

 organic and combustible nature of these par- 

 ticles was a discovery, for they had hitherto 

 been taken to be inorganic and incombustible. 



