Jan. 13, 1882.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



235 



l\rpUf£i to (©iirnesi. 



[55] — Greek Fi'tukes. — Mr. Ernest J. Wcrnham points out, in 

 answer to " Castor anfl Pollux," that the rules for forming Greek 

 futures are given in Matthi;Bs's Greek Grammar. He kindly makes 

 an extract, but we cannot afford space for grammar rules occupying 

 so much space. — Ed. 



[105] — Prej'Ervation of Fungi. — " J. S." may preserve fungi in 

 the following manner : — Take 2 oz. of sul. copper, or blue vitriol, and 

 reduce it to powder, and pour upon it a pint of boiling water, and 

 when cold add half-a-pint of spirits-of-wine ; cork it well, and call it 

 " the pickle." To 8 pints of water add li pints of spirits of wine, 

 and call it '' the liquor." Be provided with a number of wide- 

 mouthed bottles of different sizes, all well-fitted with corks. The 

 fungi should be left ou the table as long as possible, to allow the 

 moisture to evaporate ; they should then be placed in the pickle for 

 three hours, or longer if necessary ; then place them in the bottles 

 intended for their reception, and fill with the liquor. They should 

 then be well corked and sealed, and arranged in order, with their 

 names in front of the bottles. — J. G. Patterson. 



[100] — Railway Collisions. — In the worst of these accidents 

 the carriages are " telescoped," the seats of the compartments are 

 driven together, causing fractured legs. To avoid this, draw the 

 legs on to the seat and clasp the knees tightly with the arms. 

 I know of cases where tliis has been successfully tried. — Engineer. 



[116] — John Bull. — Dr. Arbuthnot, in his ludicrous " History of 

 Europe," represented an Englishman as a bluff, kind-hearted, bull- 

 headed farmer. The character he called John Bull, and since it has 

 become the national nickname. — J. J. W. 



[12.3] — High Fersientation. — In this process, which is the one 

 used in the manufacture of English beer, the yeast rises to the 

 surface of the fermenting liquid ; hence its name. It is carried on 

 by running a wort prepared from malt, or from a mixture of malt 

 and other saccharine bodies, into a circular vat, partially covered on 

 top to maintain proper temperature, and to prevent access of excess 

 of air, at about 70' Fahr. Yeast is now added, and, having a 

 plentiful supply of the food necessaiy for its growth, it soon con- 

 verts some of the soluble albuminous matter of the malt into 

 protein bodies of its own structure, while at the same time it con- 

 verts a small portion of the glucose sugar 2>resent into the cellulose 

 necessary for the construction of its cells. The mother yeast, while 

 thus reproducing itself, not having suflScient oxygen for its action, 

 decomposes the glucose, changing it into alcohol and carbonic acid 

 gas according to the following equation : — 



Glucose. Alcohol, Carbonic Acid. 



C^H.^Og = 2C„H, HO + 2 CO, 



Small quantities of glycerine, succinic acid, and other products are 

 also formed, and the action continues, unless checked by reduction 

 of temperature, until the whole of the saccharine matter is decom- 

 posed. " Low Fermentation." This process commences at about 

 50° F., and the yeast on reproduction sinks to the bottom of the 

 liquid. It is the process mainly employed on the Continent, and 

 beers so fermented cannot be preserved in wamt or temperate 

 weather, unless surrounded by ire. The decomposition of the 

 saccharine matter is the same as in "high fennentation." Stahl, 

 Willis, Liebig. and other writers considered fermentation to be due 

 to the oxidation of complex albuminoid bodies which decompose the 

 saccharine matters present, in order to obtain sufficient oxygen for 

 such oxidation ; but, according to Pasteur and the greatest of other 

 modern authorities, it is due to the action of living organisms which 

 fall accidentally into the liquid from the air, er ai-e purposely added, 

 as in the case of adding yeast to wort. The yeast organism is the 

 one which sets up alcoholic fermentation, and the reason why it is 

 artificially supplied to wort is to supersede other fermentations that 

 may be induced by germs of another nattire gaining access to the 

 liquid by means of air. The other most common ferment germs 

 are those which set up the lactic and butyric fermentations. — 

 E. M. D. — [Answered in the same sense by T. G. Browne.] 



[133] — I observe a correspondent inquiring "where he can find 

 the Bev. W. H. DoUinger's papers. If he will read the index to the 

 recent volumes of the Pojitilar Scieyicc iJerieic, he will find papers 

 by that gentleman on microscopical subjects therein noted. The 

 " Proceedings of the Eoyal Society " should also give him Mr. 

 DoUinger's papers. — Andrew Wilson. 



[137] — Humsi.e Bees. — I beg leave to state that in December, 

 1880, at the request of some persons in New Zealand, I shipped 

 eighteen fertile humble bees (Bombus Lvcorum) by the John Elder, 

 one of the Orient line of steamers, to Melbourne, Messrs. F. Green 

 & Co., the owners, kind]}- instructing their officers to take all needful 

 care of them, and see to their re-shipment in the Arawata to New 



Zealand. From a newspaper (the Timaru Herald') sent me, I learn 

 that two out of the eighteen arrived alive, and when released, on the 

 morning of Feb. 5, 18S1, flew away briskly to seek, as we may hope, 

 nests in which to multiply and increase, and thus bring about that 

 long-desired work, the fructification of red clover. I may mention 

 that these bees were searched for and sent to me by Mr. Duncan Keir, 

 an intelligent nurseryman at Paisley. I packed them in small boxes, 

 and supplied a little sugar in case they might require food in a 

 warmer latitude ; but the great point is if possible to keep them 

 dormant during the voyage, and for this purpose 1 placed the 

 package under the care of the butcher, to put in his ice-house. It 

 is well known that none other than fertile mothers hybernato. 

 Three other humble tjueens were sent Jan. 20 of last year by the 

 steamship Norfolk, which sailed dii-ect to New Zealand, under pre- 

 cisely similar circumstances, and the supply was obtained from the 

 same source, but no tidings concerning them have yet reached me. 

 The experiment has not been repeated this vrinter, owing to the 

 veiy scanty encouragement received of these and previous efforts. 

 Your correspondent, no doubt, alludes to an attempt made some 

 years since by the late Mr. Frank Buckland, in which I had the 

 pleasure of giving some assistance. — Alfred Neighbour. 



[I'lO] — Ice. — Ice contracts and expands as other solids do, by 

 valuation of temperature. This is best seen in travelling over the 

 ice on a large lake (say Lake Wiimipeg) in winter. If a cold 

 " snap" suddenly comes on, and the temperatnii'e falls 15° or 20° in 

 the course of the night, loud noises, like pistol shots or distant thunder, 

 ore heard ; if encamped near the shore, on resuming the journey 

 in the morning, large cracks, several feet wl^«le, caused by contrac- 

 tion, will be met with, and are often difficult to cross ; if the severe 

 cold continues for a day or two, these cracks freeze up. Milder 

 weather comes, the ice expands, and there being now more ice on 

 the lake than before, ridges are forced up. Another period of great 

 cold occurs, there are fresh cracks formed, with subsequent ridges 

 when the temperature rises. These contractions and expansions, 

 caused by changes of temperature, I believe to be an important 

 element in the motion of glaciers. — J. Rae. 



[146] — Chemical. — (1). It is a property of red blood-corpusclea 

 to absorb oxygen. This absorption changes them to bright red. 

 Carbonous oxide can displace O, and thus acts as a poison. Nitrogen 

 has no such power. (2). The value of carbon hydrates as food can 

 only be estimated thus in compounds of the same class ; e.g., we 

 cannot compare ether with its 22 per cent, of 0, with sugar having 

 51 per cent., the fact being that sugar, &c., are more assimilable 

 than many substances having less oxygen. — C. T. B. 



[146] — _Chemical. — E. M. must remember that the "Carbo- 

 hydrates " are just those bodies which contain the hydrogen and 

 oxygen in the proportion of water — that is, in a saturated condition 

 — none free. Cane sugar, for example, is Cj.j Hoo On, in which 

 " E. M." will find eleven times HoO, leaving 12C to answer liis 

 purpose. — Lewis Arundel. 



[1 17] — B.Sc. E.XAMiNATiON, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY. — In reply to 

 " A Philosophical Brushmaker," I may say that attendance upon 

 the Univei'sity classes necessary for the above degree (or upon 

 classes conducted elsewhere, but recognised by the University 

 Court), is imperative upon candidates. Full information may be 

 obtained in the University Calendar. — Andrew Wilson. 



[152] — Nickel Plating. — In the first part of " Amatem- Work " 

 there is a recipe for this : — Make a bath of tin tartar, boil with 

 some grain tin, and after cooling, throw in some red-hot nickel 

 oxide. When the solution turns green, dip in your articles (brass 

 or copper, of course, and perfectly clean) and in five minutes they 

 will be coated. Though \ understand chemistry well, I should be 

 glad to know what tin tartar is. — Lewis Arundel. 



[153] — Doubtful Organisji.s.— The creatures you allude to are 

 called Protista ; they partake equally of the nature of the lowest 

 animals and the lowest plants. — Lewis Arundel. 



[153] — There are certain living beings — if these are what " H. J. 

 C. W." means by "doubtful organisms" — which present in them- 

 selves a singular combination of the characters of animals and 

 plants. Such are the Monads. If " H. J. C. W." will read Huxley's 

 lecture on " The Border Territorj- between the Animal and Plant 

 Kingdoms" (to be published in his new volume of essays, " Science 

 and Culture " — Macmillan), he will find therein a full statement of 

 the likenesses which exist both to animals and plants in certain of 

 the lower forms of life — Andrew Wilson. 



[154] — Frogs are excluded from tho class Eeptilia (as any ordi- 

 nary primer of zoology would have shov\Ti " H. J. C. W.") because 

 they possess gills in early life. No reptile {i.e., tortoises, snakes, 

 Uzards, and crocodiles) possesses gills at any period of existence, 

 but breathes from the first by lungs. Frogs, newts, toads, &c., are 

 amphibians. They all begin" life with gills, and afterwards develop 



