950 Transactions of the American Institute. 



through them, and thus the most troublesome part of the carbon 

 process, " the transfer," is dispensed with. 



Combustion, 

 H, De\'ille confirms the statement of Dr. Frankland, that when 

 gas burns under high pressure the combustion and temperature are 

 increased, and he explains this by his published theoiy of " dissocia- 

 tion." When hydrogen burns in ordinary oxygen there is never 

 more than half combustion, even in the hottest part of the flame, 

 because the "dissociative tension of watery vapor resists it. By 

 increasing the pressure we diminish the influence of this tension of 

 dissociation ; hence, increased combustion. 



Goitre, 



It is stated, in a paper sent to the French Academy in competition 

 for the prize of medicine, that out of 300 communes in Haut-Savoy 

 there are hardly ten in which goitre is not endemic. Three causes 

 are assigned for this sad condition of the people. First, the use 

 of drinking wate*' containing metallic salts ; second, drunkenness ; 

 third, want of cleanliness. The authorities have lately attempted to 

 protect the children from the disease, by introducing purer drinking 

 water, and administering lozenges containing the salts of iodine. 



The Philosophy or Tea-making. 



The British Medical Journal says the results of the investigations 

 of careful experimenters are hardly, perhaps, sufficiently known to 

 the multitude of tea-drinkers. The whole subject is carefully 

 summarized by Dr. Letheby in his recent Canton lectures. There is 

 a popular notion, which is an incorrect one, that soft water is best 

 for tea-making. As a matter of fact our London water, which has 

 about five degrees of hardness when boiled, makes the best flavored 

 tea, provided it be allowed to stand upon the tea sufficiently long. 

 Boiling tea is one of the follies of which officials in workhouses and 

 other large establishments are guilty. This makes a deep-colored 

 solution containing worthless extractive matter, which is devoid of 

 physiological or dietetic property. In point of strength it is found 

 experimentally that infusions of tea and coffee are strong enough 

 when about two and a half teaspoonfuls of tea or two ounces of 

 freshly roasted coffee are infused in a pint of boiling water. From 

 some inquiries which Dr. Edward Smith made into the relative 



