Polytechnic Association Proceedings. 563 



species of herring known as alpsa menliaden, crude hydrocarbons, 

 which, on being rectified, gave a product very closely resembling 

 refined coal oil and petroleum in color, odor, and illuminating 

 properties. The naphtha obtained from the crude product, by 

 Warren's process of fractional condensation, has been subjected to 

 repeated distillations. After nearly a year spent in experiments, 

 they have separated sixteen bodies of constant boiling point, which 

 were found to be hydrides of the higher alcohol radicals, and the 

 more dense homologues of amylene an^ benzole. These investi- 

 gations have an important bearing on the question of the origin of 

 petroleum. 



THE CRYSTALLINE LENS. 



M. Melliot has presented a memoir to the French Academy of 

 Science, on the regeneration of crystalline lens when extracted in 

 at state of health. The animals are operated upon under the influ- 

 ence of chloroform, and in order to facilitate healing of the cornea, 

 the eyelids are closed by one or two sutures, w^hich ordinarily ftill 

 between the third and fifth day, when the operation proceeds suc- 

 cessfully, but earlier when suppuration of the eye takes place. 

 His experiments prove, incontestibly, the regeneration of the 

 lens, and that the vessels, in the order of their reappearance, 

 follow the phases presented during their embryonic evolution. 

 The regeneration generally commences at the end of the second 

 week after the operation, and is not complete till from the fifth to 

 the twelfth month; even longer time is required for perfect restor- 

 ation, if the animal be aged. 



MILK SICKNESS. 



The Medical and Surgical Reportei' states that the afiection of 

 cattle known as "milk sickness," is caused by eating the white 

 snake root, eupatorium agei^atoidis. This discovery seems to have 

 been made by three separate observers, at about the same time. 

 One of them, Mr. William Jerry, of Edwardsville. 111., in 1860, 

 gathered this plant by mistake for the nettle, and eat it as boiled 

 greens. On the day following, he was suddenly seized with violent 

 trembling, prostration and faiutness, and on the next day with 

 vomiting and violent retching. He did not fully recover in five 

 years, and in the meantime tried the plant on domestic animals with 

 similar results. Dr. Amos Sawyer, of Hillsboro, 111., Mr. E. N. 

 Lee, of Nokomis, Dr. McPheeters, of St. Louis (botanist),. and Mr. 

 Euno (chemist), all coincide in the opinion that milk sickness is 



