FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



141 





from severe attacks of gout, and both the 

 Earl of Chatham and Fox were afflicted by 

 it. Horace Walpole was another victim, and, 

 after comically describing himself as wrapped 

 in flannels, like the picture of a Morocco 

 ambassador, he says : " If either my father or 

 mother had had it, I should not dislike it so 

 much. I am herald enough to approve it if 

 descended genealogically, but it is an abso- 

 lute upstart in me, and, what is more provok- 

 ing, I had trusted to my great abstinence for 

 keeping me from it ; but thus it is." Sydney 

 Smith, when writing to the Countess of Car- 

 lisle in his seventy-first year, speaks of his 

 gout, and humorously says : " What a very 

 singular disease it is ! It seems as if the 

 stomach fell down into the feet. The small- 

 est deviation from right diet is immediately 

 punished by limping and lameness, and the 

 innocent ankle and blameless instep are tor- 

 tured for the vices of the nobler organs." 

 The fact that gout occurs among the poor 

 and temperate Faroe islanders, and that it 

 may be generated by a low diet and absti- 

 nence carried to extremes, would seem to in- 

 dicate that it is not always caused by over- 

 feeding. Among some of the literary men 

 and poets who have suffered from gout may 

 be mentioned Fielding, Newton, Linnaeus, 

 Milton, Congreve, and Dryden, and of war- 

 riors included among its victims Lord Howe, 

 Marshal Saxe, Wallenstein, and Conde. Dr. 

 Cullen was strongly of opinion that all gout 

 must be considered hereditary. Modern sci- 

 ence has somewhat qualified this assertion, 

 maintaining that three out of every five cases 

 may be regarded as inherited. It is worthy 

 of note that where there is a predisposition 

 for gout a fit may be induced by the most 

 opposite causes; and whereas Kingsley's 

 " northeast wind " will excite it in some in- 

 stances, a mathematical problem has been 

 known to produce it in another. It seems 

 incredible that any one should desire gout, 

 and yet it is said that Archbishop Sheldon 

 not only wished for it, but actually offered 

 as much as five thousand dollars to any per- 

 son who would keep him to it ; for he looked 

 upon gout as " the only remedy for the dis- 

 tress in his head." Gout is not confined to 

 any one class, and has afflicted some of the 

 ablest men in all ages, although, strange to 

 say, it is five times more frequent in men 

 than in women. 



The Unapproachable Antarctic Conti- 

 nent. Whether it will ever be possible to 

 make a satisfactory exploration of the ant- 

 arctic continent is a matter of doubt, on 

 which very little if any light is shed by the 

 reports of Mr. Borchgrevink, the latest navi- 

 gator who has tried to penetrate the region. 

 The defenses of the shores against approach 

 are considerably more formidable than those 

 of the arctic seas, and consist of the 

 "pack," a moving mass of icebergs of enor- 

 mous size, and floating ice ; within this, a rim 

 of compact ice, fringing the greater part of 

 the shore, and extending out often several 

 hundred miles from the land ; and the ice 

 barrier of the land itself. Captain Cook did 

 not believe that any man would venture far- 

 ther toward the pole than he had gone ; but 

 in 1 823 a Captain Weddell found an unusually 

 extended break in the ice fringe, and reached 

 14 15' S., but not the mainland. Yet he 

 found the antarctic islands almost inacces- 

 sible, constantly covered with snow, except 

 some perpendicular rocks, and nearly desti- 

 tute of vegetation. Sir James Ross sailed in 

 sight of the antarctic mountains, a hundred 

 miles away, but was not able to make a 

 landing. Wilkes saw land at several points, 

 but could not pierce the ice barrier. Even 

 if a landing were made, the country does 

 not seem to afford even the poor facilities 

 for exploration which the arctic regions fur- 

 nish ; it has few known animals and no in- 

 habitants, of which arctic travelers are often 

 able to make considerable use. 



Metallic Iron in Water Purification. 



Mr. F. A. Anderson recently delivered an in- 

 teresting address before the Society of Arts 

 on the purification of water by means of 

 metallic iron. While this method is not a 

 new one, and has been in use in various 

 English towns for some years, Mr. Ander- 

 son's paper is worthy of attention as giving 

 a very clear description of the apparatus and 

 methods of the process. He says: "The 

 idea of purifying water by agitating it with 

 metallic iron is due to Sir Frederick Abel. 

 The revolving purifier is a cylindrical vessel, 

 supported horizontally upon hollow trunnions, 

 through one of which the water to be puri- 

 fied enters ; after traversing the cylinder it 

 leaves by the other trunnion. The cylinder 

 is caused to rotate about its axis by means 



