Jtily 30, 1874] 



NA TURE 



253 



Mr. Newbigging, in his " Handboolc for Gas Engineers and 

 Managers," London, 1S70, p. 159, gives a " Chronology of Gas 

 Ligliling. " By this author's statement the first public exhibition 

 of gas in London was in 1S07, by Mr. Winsor, who lighted Pall 

 Mall at that time. But Prof. B. Silliman, writing to the ^////iv/ckk 

 Gns Lig/il jfaiinial, gives an e.\tract from tlie elder Prof Silli- 

 man's "Journal of Travels in England, Holland, and Scotland," 

 containing a description of a public e.xliibition of illuminating gas 

 from coal in July 1S05, by "an ingenious apothecary " in Picca- 

 dilly, near Albany House. " The inflammable gas," the journal 

 states, " is extricated simply by heating common fossil coal in a 

 furnace, witli a proper apparatus to prevent the escape of the 

 gas, and to conduct it into a large vessel of water, which con- 

 denses the bituminous matter resembling tar, and several other 

 products of the distillation that are foreign to the principal object. 

 The gas, being thus washed and purified, is allowed to ascend 

 through a main tube, and is then distributed by means>f olher 

 tubes concealed in the structure of the room, andbranching off 

 in every desired direction, till, at last, they communicate with 

 sconces along the walls, and with chandeliers depending from 

 the roof, in such a manner that the gas issues in streams from 

 orifices situated where the candles are commonly placed. Then 

 it is set on fire, and forms very beautiful jets of flame, of great 

 brilliancy ; and from their being numerous, long, and pointed, 

 and waving ^^■ith every breath of air, they have an effect almost 

 mngical, and seem as if endowed witli a kind of animation. 

 The gas is sometimes made to escape in revolving jets, when it 

 forms circles of flame — and, in short, there is no end to the 

 variety of forms which ingenuity and fancy may give to this 

 brilliant invention. The expense of the apparatus, and its lia- 

 bility to accidents, forms an obstacle of magnitude, and, on the 

 whole, it is probable it will not be generally adopted." This is 

 curious reading in 1874 ! Mr. Murdoch had employed gas 

 illumination in 1792, and gas was used in Paris in 1S02. But 

 London was in the dark until 1S05. 



Dr. MellichAmp, of Eluffton, South Carolina, has been 

 prosecuting researches on the pitchers of Sarraceuia variolaris 

 and tlie way in which insects are caught in them. The species 

 abounds in this district, and even early in May many pitchers 

 were developed. He has confirmed the presence of the sugary 

 secretion within the rim. He finds that it bedews the throat all 

 the way round the rim, and extends downwards from \ in. to 

 '\ in. Dr. Mellichamp also finds— and this is his most curious 

 discovery— that this sweet secretion is continued externally in a 

 line along the edge of the wing of the pitchers down to the 

 petiole or to the ground, forming a honeyed trail or pathway up 

 which some insects, and especially ants, travel to the more 

 copious feeding ground above, whence they are precipitated into 

 the well beneath. Ants are largely accumulated in these 

 pitchers. As to the supposed intoxicating qualities of this secre- 

 tion, Dr. Mellichamp was unable to find any evidence of it. On 

 cutting off the summit of the pitchers and exposing them freely 

 to flies in his house, he found that the insects which came to 

 them, and (ed upon the sweet matter with avidity, flew away 

 after sipping their fill, to all appearance unharmed. On the 

 other liand, he thinks that the watery liquid in which the insects 

 are drowned and macerated possesses ancLSthetic properties ; that 

 house-flies, after brief immersion in it, and when permitted to 

 walk about in a thin layer of it, " weie invariably kifled— as at 

 first supposed — or at any rate stupefied or paralysed in from half 

 a minute to three or five minutes," but most of them would 

 revive very gradually in the course of an hour or so. 



Ir is probable that a scheme for the establishment of another 

 Medical School at Dacca, on the same footing as those of 

 Calcutta and Patna, wUl shortly be sanctioned by Government. 



The success which has attended the ostrich-breeding farms in 



South Africa has induced some French gentlemen to endeavour 

 to imitate the system in Algeria, and African birds have also 

 been sent to La Plata and other countries in South America, 

 where it is Iroped they may take tlie place of tlie native birds, 

 which are inferior in quality to tlie African ostrich. Generally 

 speaking, the system on whicli ostrich farms are conducted is as 

 follows. The birds kept for breeding purposes, about three 

 years old, are placed in separate paddocks, in pairs, and their 

 eggs are either hatched in tlie natural way or placed in incu- 

 bators prepared for the purpose. By this means a larger propor- 

 tion of eggs is hatched. The young birds are fed on grass, 

 lucerne, and other vegetable matters, and are sheltered at night. 

 Each pair of birds will produce about twenty chickens, which 

 may be plucked when they are about eighteen months old, before 

 which time the feathers are not of mucli value. The price of 

 good ostrich feathers, wholesale, is about 40/. per pound weight. 

 If the birds are well kept, and have plenty of exercise and food, 

 their feathers are of good quality ; but the plumage of wild birds 

 is considered superior to that of inferior tame ones. The value 

 of each year's plucking from the young birds is about 7/. , and of 

 the birds themselves at six months old is 30/. to 35/. The breed- 

 ing birds are worth 125/. per pair. 



The new screw steamship Diiiham sailed from Plymouth on 

 Sunday, bound for Melbourne, having on board several mem- 

 bers of the Imperial German Astronomical Expedition. They 

 carry with them a large number of instruments with which to 

 observe from Port Ross, one of the Auckland Islands, the coming 

 transit cf Venus. 



We have received, reprinted from the excellent Indian oniiiho- 

 logical journal Stray Feathers, a copy of a lengthy paper by 

 Mr. V. Ball, on the Avifauna of the Chota Nagpur division of 

 Bengal, which, besides giving an account of the birds found in the 

 distric'', contains an instructive description of its geology, flora, 

 and m.ammalian fauna ; the author laying great stress, as is but 

 too seldom done, on the interdependence between these mutually 

 related phenomena. 



The tenacity of life of popular errors is well exhibited in 

 the following extract from the Californiaii Horticulturist : — 

 " The influence of forests in drawing moisture from the heavens 

 may be seen from the experience of San Diego, California. 

 Previous to 1863 there was yearly a rainy season, which made 

 the soil nourishing and productive. In 1S63 a destructive fire 

 swept over the greater part of the country, destroying the forest 

 and blackening the hills. Since then there has been no rainy 

 season at San Diego." When will public writers learn that 

 forests influence the climate by drawing water, not from the air, 

 but from the soil ? 



An addition is in preparation to the Colonial Floras published 

 under the authority of our Colonial Government, in the form of 

 a "Flora of Mauritius." It will be edited by Mr. J. G. Baker, 

 assistant-curator to the Kew Herbarium. 



Pkoi-. Scillili'ER, of Strassburg, in a paper read before the 

 Botanical Congress at Florence, claims to have discovered a 

 fossil plant in "protogine," a rock hitherto considered of 

 igneous origin, which occurs in the form of erratic blocks on the 

 sides of Mont Blanc and in the plains of Piedmont. The 

 specimen, which was collected by M. Sismonia, and is pre- 

 served in the IMuseum of the Turin University, has been identified 

 by Prof Schimper as Annularia spkeuophylloidcs, a plant, per- 

 haps aquatic, widely distributed in the coal-strata of Mont 

 Blanc. 



A Drawing-room meeting in aid of the Palestine E.xplora- 

 tion Fund was held on the 24th inst. at the residence of the 

 Duke of Westminster, Grosvenor House. Capt. Warren, before 



