364 
ALORLE 
[ 26. 3, 1870 
granite quarry in the Dlaschkowitz estate of Ceunt Schénborn, 
about eight miles north-west of Prague. The stone weighs 57 
milligrams, is of a light yellow colour, and nearly cubtical in 
shape, the edges and corners being slightly rounded. In hard- 
ness it equals the East Indian, and exceeds the Brazilian 
diamonds. After the careful examination which the stone has 
been subjected to, by Prof. Schafarik, there can be little doubt 
of its genuineness ; but that simple fact will hardly justify us in 
believing that a diamond has really been found associated with 
basalt and other minerals of plutonic origin, seeing that the beds 
which, in other parts of the world, have yielded this precious 
stone, are all sedimentary deposits. The Dlaschkowitz dia- 
mond had confessedly passed through the hands of a lapidary 
(who was unable to polish it on account of its hardness) before 
it reached M. Schafarik, and it would be reasonable, for the 
present, to suppose that an East India diamond had by some 
accident become mixed up with the various Bohemian stones sent 
to the lapidary. It has been suggested in Bohemia that the 
Dlaschkowitz diamond is nothing but zircon; but the stone 
does not agree with that mineral, either in specific gravity or in 
hardness. ‘To those of our readers who are interested in the 
diamond discoveries in the Cape Colony we may commend an 
article “On the Diamond Regions of South Africa” in the /%eld 
newspaper of the 22nd ult. 
In a recent number of NATURE we gave an account of some 
experiments by Lenz on the occlusion of hydrogen by electro- 
deposited iron, It will be remembered that in the discussion 
that followed the reading of M. de Jacobi’s paper before the 
British Association at Exeter, Mr. W. Chandler Roberts stated 
that electro-type iron occluded at least twenty times its volume 
of hydrogen, The extraction of the gas was followed by a con- 
traction of the metal. This Mr. Roberts considered important, 
from its connection with the behaviour of Palladium under 
similar conditions. 
THE last bulletin of the Association Scientifique de France 
publishes three accounts of shocks of earthquakes at Marseilles 
and Toulon on the morning of the 18th ult. M. Stephan, of 
Marseilles, speaks of a smart shock at 2.50 A.M., the direction 
of the oscillation being from north to south, and lasting three 
seconds. Another slight shock, having the same direction, was 
noted by him at 3.5 A.M. M. Ferrier, of Marseilles, observed 
prolonged oscillations at 2.45 A.M. According to him, there 
were twenty or twenty-five oscillations from south-west to north- 
east, the intensity of the oscillations being all equal, and the 
duration of each one-third of a second. M. Zurchen, writing 
from Toulon, mentions two violent shocks at 3.7 A.M. There 
was an interval of two seconds between them. The oscillations 
appeared to be from north to south. 
In the matter of sewage, as inso many other particulars, the 
metropolis allows itself to be outdone by provincial towns. 
Leamington, for example, has had its sewage examined by Dr. 
Letheby ; one sample after it had passed the charcoal filter, the 
other before being subjected to that process, although it had 
undergone chemical influences. In one of these, Dr. Letheby 
found only 8-40 grains of organic matter (in solution), and in 
the other, only 9°40 grains; whereas, ordinary London sewage 
contains 1508 grains. Again, of mineral or organic matters in 
suspension, the two Leamington samples yielded none whatever, 
but on the other hand, the London sewage contained 22°04 grains 
of mineral, and 16°11 grains of organic matters in suspension. 
Now, why is there this contrast? And yet nearly all the towns 
of the Thames valley are under strict orders from the con- 
servators to discontinue draining into the river at a given time. 
ACCORDING to the Avenir of Auch, 130 tumuli, one of them 
containing a hundred skeletons, have just been discovered in the 
fandes of Ossun, 
Pror. R. S. BAL will commence a series of twenty lectures 
on Mechanics, in the Royal College of Science, Dublin, on the 
7th of February. It is expected that this course will be found 
useful to artisans, as well as to students commencing the study of 
mechanics, 
Tue Natural History Museum of the Royal Dublin Society 
has been open for the last few months on one evening in each 
week to the public. The success that has attended this experi- 
ment has been something quite unexpected. The artisan class 
have flocked into the Museum in such numbers as to incon- 
veniently fill it ; the building, which can scarcely accommodate 
2,000, being on at least one evening overcrowded with upwards 
of 3,000. In the meanwhile, the Department of Science and 
Art is greatly to blame in not increasing the number of porters, 
whose duty it is to regulate the movements of this great crowd 
as it circulates up staircases not four feet wide, and along the 
narrow slender galleries. If we except one porter, who acts as 
“*turnstile ” (counting the number of visitors), and another who 
takes the pennies for sticks and umbrellas, there are not three 
porters to do the duty of a dozen. The success of the experi- 
ment ought not to be endangered for the sake of a little 
expense. 
On Saturday last M. Murez resumed his lectures at the College 
of France, on the mechanism involved in the flight of birds. 
His lectures of last year on this subject were published in the 
Revue des Cours Scientifiques. 
Mr. Hutv’s paper read last week at the Royal Society has a 
value beyond that of recording the temperature of the strata 
through which the shaft of a coaJ-mine was sunk near Wigan. 
A mine 808 yards deep, nearly half-a-mile, is the deepest in 
the world, penetrates the ‘‘crust” of the globe farther than 
any other mine, and so has an especial interest for those who 
concern themselves about our supplies of coal. Geologists 
have told us that if we dig down through the ‘‘old red” we 
shall find coal-beds of greater extent than those which we have 
worked so profitably for the last two hundred years. This, 
however, did not comfort those uneasy people who looked 
forward to the exhaustion of coal; for the ‘‘old red” is so 
thick, it would never pay to raise coal from such a depth! 
And here the Rose Bridge Colliery, near Wigan, above referred 
to, hecomes of especial importance. It may be regarded as 
an experiment towards a solution of the question of very deep 
mining. Already the proprietor finds that the cost of ‘‘ getting” 
the coal is greater than when the mine was but 600 yards 
deep. This is the natural consequence of increase of tem- 
perature and increase of pressure. The temperature of the 
coal at the bottom of the mine, as stated in Mr. Hull’s paper, 
is ninety-three degrees and a half! How long will the timber 
props last in such a temperature and under such a pressure 
as they have to bear? If the mine yields a profit under such 
circumstances, then some enterprising coalowner may be 
tempted to go deeper. 
WE learn from the Atheneum that the sixth and concluding 
part of the first volume ‘of annals of the Public Museum of 
Buenos Ayres has been issued, and that the work still bears the 
name of Dr. Burmeister as editor. The papers contained in this 
part, which is handsomely illustrated like its predecessors, are as 
follows :—‘‘ Descripcion de Cuatro Especies de Delfines de la 
Costa Argentina,” and “ Catologo de los Mamiferos Argentinos 
con los del Museo Publico.” 
THE election of the new Council (Commission Centrale) of the 
French Geographical Society took place on the 7th ultimo with 
the following result :—President, M. de Quartrefages; Vice- 
Presidents, MM. d’Avezac and E. Cortumbert ; General Secre- 
tary, M. Mannoir; Assistant Secretaries MM. R. Cortambert 
and C, Delamarre. 
a 
