May 12, 1881J 



NA TURE 



39 



interesting unpublished letter from Sir Isaac Newton to 

 Dr. Law : — 



"London, Dec. 15, 17 16 



" Dear Doctor : He that in ye mine of knowledge deepest 

 diggeth, hath, like every other miner ye least breathing time, and 

 must soir.etiuies at least come to terr ; alt for air. 



" In one of tliese respiratory intervals I now sit doune to write 

 to you, my fiiend, 



" You ask me how, with so much study, I manage to retene 

 my health. Ah, my dear doctor, you have a better opinion of 

 your lazy friend than he liath of himself. Morpheous is my best 

 com|ianion ; without 8 or 9 hours of him yr correspondent is not 

 w orth one scavenger's peruke. My practizes did at ye first hurt 

 my st< raach, but now I eat heartily enow as y' will see when I 

 come down btside you. 



" I have been much amused by ye singular ^ivo^iva resulting 

 from bringing of a needle into contact with a piece of amber or 

 resin fricated on silke clothe. Ye llame puttcth me in mind of 

 sheet lightning on a small — how very small — scale. But I shall 

 in my epistles abjure Philosophy w hereof w hen I come down to 

 Sakly I'll give you enow. I began to scrawl at 5 mins frm 9 of 

 ye elk, and have in writing consmd 10 mins. My Ld, Somerset 

 is announced. 



" Farewell, Gd bless you and help yr sincere friend 



" (Signed) Isaac Newton 



"To Dr. Law, Suffolk" 



Very great progress is being made in Paris to render the 

 forthcoming Electric Exhibition a success. There are sixty-four 

 English exhibitors. The Post Office is going to make a very 

 good display, and as the old apparatus of Ampere and Qirsted 

 will be shown, it is hoped that those of Faraday and Wheatstone 

 will be added. 



L'£!cctricien is tlie title of a new foitnightly journal published 

 in Paris and devoted to the interests of the science of electricity. 

 It might have been thought that with VElcctriciU; edited by M. 

 Wilfrid de Fonvielle, and La Lumiire EUctrique, edited by M. 

 le Comte du Moncel, appearing every week, the field would have 

 been fully occupied. The latter journal is however somewhat more 

 special in iis aims, and the former appears to be at present given 

 over to discursive maunderings on natural photophony and to 

 rabid attacks upon Clerk-Maxwell's theory of electricity. At 

 any rate there appears to be scope for a journal of a somewhat 

 different order ; and the pages of No. I, now before us, contain 

 valuable contributions from well-known pens. i\I. Mercadier 

 contributes an article on the use of selenium in the pliotophone ; 

 M. Niaudet-Breguet writes upon the different systems adopted 

 for central stations in telephone exchanges ; Dr. de Cyon has an 

 interesting article on electrobiology ; M. Gaston Tissandier dis- 

 courses on one of the domestic applications of electricity ; while 

 Prof. C. M. Gariel contributes a valuable discussion of the 

 graphic method of representing Ohm's law and other laws of 

 current electricity. The acting editor is M. E. Hospitaller, the 

 well-known electrical engineer. The publication, which is 

 illustrated, is got up in admiralde style by the house of Gustave 

 Masson. We wish all success to the undertaking so excellently 

 begun. 



The Paris Municipal Laboratory for testing all matters having 

 any bearing on health, and the organisation of which is now 

 quite complete, was opened to the public on March i. The 

 establishment, which is situated at the Prefecture of Police, 

 Quai du Marche Neuf, w ill be formally inaugurated to-morrow. 

 The laboratory is already regarded as a success, the number 

 of objects presented for analysis amounting in April to 

 not less than 700, mostly wine purchased in shops, and 

 suspected of being adulterated. 'The number of falsifications 

 amounts to 80 out of 100. In every case where aduUeration has 

 been detected the results have been communicated to the com- 

 petent authorities, who have prosecuted. Milk has been also 

 sent in great quantity, and in many cases proved adulterated or 

 mixed with water. The results of these inquiries have created 



such an agitation among Parisian milkmen that when they w ire 

 surrounded at Batignoles Terminus and their boxes about to be 

 ojiened for inspection, they resisted. A scuffle ensued between 

 them and the police, and the result was that a number es- 

 caped. French chocolate has also been found very defective in 

 quality, an immense number of substances having been added to 

 it. The head of this new service is M. Ch. Gerard, a chemist of 

 reputation. All the assistants are selected by competitive 

 examination, and are only to remain in the service for a few 

 years. They belong mostly to the School of Medicine and 

 Pharmacy, so that the institution may be considered as a public 

 school of practical chemistry. The general organisation is said 

 to be modelled after the Chemical Laboratory at South Kensing- 

 ton. Notable features are the use of spectroscopic analysis 

 combined with the electric spark, a workshop for photography, 

 and the special service for trichinje. The ordinary market- 

 inspectors are trained to use special microscopes for that pur- 

 poi e. A special instrument has been constructed fur boring in 

 ham small holes which are not visible when ccoked, and the 

 particles of flesh so extirpated are analysed microscopically. A 

 special apparatus has been designed and is in constant use for 

 trying swine, and even the muscles of patients. 



Mr. Morris, the Director of Public Gardens and Plantationg 

 in Jamaica, has recently issued a pamphlet entitled "Notes on 

 Liberian Cofiee, its History and Cultivation." In this pamphlet 

 Mr. Morris has brought together a great deal of valuable matter 

 connected with this remarkable species of Coffca, which wlU 

 prove not only interesting to those who w ish to see the resources 

 of our Colonies developed, but particularly to those about to 

 embark in the cultivation of coffee as an article of commerce. 

 The pamphlet commences with some historical remarks on the 

 species, and then touches on its introduction into Jamaica, fol- 

 lowed by a consideration of the plant as found in Liberia, in the 

 West and East Indies, of its propagation and the establishing of 

 plantations with regard to climate, soil, and various other details ; 

 some interesting notes follow on the yield of Liberian coffee tree«, 

 and of the commercial value of the coffee itself. In view of this 

 pamphlet being of considerable use to persons abroad who may 

 be about to embark in the cultivation of this particular species, 

 we may say that it is issued from the Government Printing 

 Establishment at Jamaica, and that its price is sixpence. 



A NEW medicinal oil has just been introduced into this country 

 by Messrs. Burgoyne and Burbidges, the well-known chemists of 

 Coleman Street. It is known as Oolachan oil, and is said to be 

 scarcely distinguishable from cod liver oil. It is obtained from 

 a fish called by the North American Indians Oolachan, or candle 

 fish, from the fact that when dried the fish itself can be used as 

 a torch or candle on account of the large quantity of oleaginous 

 matter it contains. The fish is met with on the coasts of 

 Vancouver's Island and British Columbia, and in the bays 

 between the Frazer and Skuna Rivers. Similar in its habits to 

 the salmon, it ascends the rivers to spawn once a year, I ut 

 remains only for a very short period, sometimes not more than a 

 day, and as this is the only time they can be caught by the 

 Indians, the manufacture of the oil is somew hat precarious. The 

 fish itself, which is about the size of a herring, is much esteemed 

 by the Indians on account of its delicacy of flavour and valuable 

 medicinal properties. In America the oil has already a great 

 reputation as a valuable and efficient substitute for cod liver oil, 

 and there is every probability as it becomes know n in this country 

 of its taking a prominent place as an important medicine. 



M. Herve-Mangon, the director of the Conservatoire des 

 Arts et Metiers, has estabhshed a manufacture of pottery in the 

 large hall, in order to make the Parisian public acquainted with 

 several of the manipulations used in the large manufactories. 

 This demonstration, which will be continued during several 



