August /i, 1891.J 



SCIENCE. 



103 



serious extent and spread over the district, it came at last to be 

 recognized as a local variety. When the runs, on vehich these 

 sheep were abundant, were cut up and sold or re-leased in smaller 

 areas a few years ago, the purchasers found it necessary for the 

 protection of their own interests to exterminate the variety, of 

 which hundreds were found straggling over the country. This 

 was easily and effectually done in the following manner. As soon 

 as a sheep was observed it was pursued, but after running for a 

 couple of hundred yards at a great rate of speed, it would drop 

 down panting behind a big stone or other shelter, and seemed in- 

 capable for a time of rising and renewing its flight. It was imme- 

 diately destroyed, and in this manner a useless, but to the natu- 

 ralist a very interesting, variety was eliminated. 



— M. Paul Barre contributes to the Revue Fran^aise (April 15, 

 1891) a short paper on trans-asiatic journeys, from which the 

 Scottish Geographical Magazine extracts the following. The 

 Dutchman Ruysbroeck visited Mongolia between 1246 and 1273, 

 but, though he advanced far towards the east, he did not succeed 

 in reaching the Chinese coast. The first European to traverse the 

 whole continent was Marco Polo (1271-1295), who, passing through 

 Turkestan and China, entered Pekin, and extended his journey 

 even to Japan. Irmak Timofeef, 3 Cossack brigand, opened Siberia 

 to Muscovite influence (1530); and Elisee Bouza (1685), Kopylof 

 (1639), and Sladukhim and Ignatief (1644) succeeded in reaching 

 the north-western limits of this country. Dejnef, in 1648, reached 

 the Gulf of Anadir, and ascertained the existence of a strait be- 

 tween Siberia and America before Behring sailed to that region. 

 Again, Baikof crossed Mongolia in 1654, and entered Pekin as 

 ambassador of the Czar. Prom this time Russian explorers in 

 Siberia became very numerous, but no one followed in the track 

 of Marco Polo until quite recently. Ney Elias crossed Central 

 Asia in 1872-73; M'Carthy travelled from Shanghai to Bhamo in 

 1876-78, and thence to the coast; Joseph Martin has crossed Siberia 

 twice; Benoist Mechin and Mailly Chalon journeyed from the 

 XJssuri to Bohkara and Merv; and Przhevalski penetrated as far 

 eastwards as the sources of the Whang-ho. Still more recently 

 (1889) Yciunghusband traversed Central Asia from Pekin to India, 

 and Bonvalot (1889-90) passed from Siberia through Thibet to 

 southern China. 



— On Aug. 13 Gen. Greely sailed for Munich, to attend a meet- 

 ing of the International Polar Commission. Gen. Greely has been 

 ordered by the War Department to attend this meeting, which is 

 the fourth and final session of the commission, and which com- 

 pletes his work in connection with arctic exploration and scien- 

 tific investigation of the physics of the polar regions. At this 

 meeting the commission will consider the final scientific treatment 

 of the volumes of physical observations published by the Govern- 

 ments which sent out the expeditions of 1881 to 1883. No less 

 than eleven nations will be represented at Munich. Gen. Greely 

 is the only representative from the United States, having been 

 unanimously elected by the other members of the commission. 

 Gen. Greely, in addition to urging on the commission the general 

 discussion of arctic meteorology, will present to the members a 

 scheme of general treatment for the magnetic observations and re- 

 sults of the studies and investigations of Professor Bigelow of the 

 Nautical Almanac office of the Navy Department. This line of 

 treatment is original, and as it is indorsed by Professor C. A. 

 Scl^ott of the coast survey, the acknowledged authority in this 

 country on magnetics, it is believed that it will be interesting to 

 the scientific world when fully developed. 



— The use of the detersive effect of a stream of water, says 

 Engineering, has been very general in what is known as hydraulic 

 mining in the western part of the United States, where bills of 

 gold-bearing earth have been washed away by very powerful 

 streams conveyed from elevated sources of water supply in the 

 mountains, the gold being afterwards found in more concen- 

 trated form deposited in the valley at points where the current 

 was rapid enough to bear away the earth : but the deposits of earth 

 •on the arable lands in the valley below have been so destructive 

 to grazing land that stringent legislation has been necessary to 

 prevent the continuance of this practice in many portions of the 

 country. Recently, however, there has been an application of 



the same practice, but for a reversed purpose, and that is on a 

 railway line in the State of Michigan, where an available supply 

 of water was used to wash down gravel deposits among trestles or 

 timber viaducts along the line of the road, and in that manner to 

 deposit gravel in such a way as to fill up a solid embankment to 

 the line of the track. By guiding these movable sluiceways and 

 also altering their slope or the supply of the water, the direction 

 and velocity was controlled so as to accomplish the result in a very 

 cheap manner, the expense of such filling being about three cents 

 per cubic yard. At Soranton, Penn., there are numerous piles of 

 anthracite culm in the vicinity of the coal breakers over the pit's 

 mouth at the mines, and recently this material has been put to 

 considerable use under boilers, as people are allowed to take it 

 away at a cost of ten cents per ton. An electric light and power 

 station has been built near one of these culm piles, and the coal 

 taken from the pile to the fire-room by means of a stream of water 

 and a sluiceway. Just outside of the delivery in the fire-room the 

 bottom of the sluiceway is perforated so that the water can pass 

 away, and the fuel is delivered at the fire-room in a reasonably 

 dry condition, as the water passes away from it readily. When 

 the low cost of the fuel and slight expense of its transportation is 

 considered, it is held that the amount of moisture in the fuel is 

 merely an item of lesser expense in comparison with other means 

 of delivery. 



— The London Times of May 20 gives a melancholy account of 

 the Coreans, extracted from a Japanese paper. An evil genius, 

 says the correspondent, seems brooding over the life of the Corean 

 people, paralyzing every nerve and muscle. This evil genius seems 

 to be nothing else than a wretched system of government, or, 

 rather, the absence of anything deserving the name of government. 

 The aristocracy, by unjust taxation, persecution, and violence, 

 extort from the agricultural population the small surplus of their 

 earnings which remains after their absolute necessities are satis- 

 fied. Consequently the villages have a desolate appearance, the 

 roads are execrable, and stagnation prevails throughout the coun- 

 try. Yet the peninsula is remarkably rich in natural products. 

 The gold deposits must be of value, for, even now, gold-dust to 

 the value of about £500,000 is exported yearly. There are rich 

 mines of anthracite in the north, and iron, copper, and lead await 

 the miner and manufacturer. But as long as abject poverty is a 

 man's sole protection the country cannot make progress. 



— An interesting article on the utilization of waste products in 

 relation to breweries, in the Brewers' Guardian (English), calls 

 attention to the utilization of the carbonic acid gas produced in 

 the fermentation of sugar. On an average, English beer may 

 be considered to contain 5 per cent of alcohol, and as, in the fer- 

 mentation of sugar, the weight of carbonic acid produced is almost 

 the same as that of alcohol (the exact proportions being 48.9 of 

 carbonic acid to 51.1 of alcohol), there must have been 500,000,000 

 pounds of carbonic acid produced in our breweries. The specific 

 gravity of carbonic acid is 0.1524, and therefore a simple calcula- 

 tion shows that the above weight is equal to 25,000,000,000 gallons 

 — a volume it is almost impossible to realize. Such a volume 

 would require a space one mile square and forty yards high to 

 contain it. It is now proposed to utilize the greater portion of 

 this large quantity of carbonic acid. The process by which this 

 is to be done has been tried for some little time past in St. James's 

 Gate brewery, Dublin ; and Sir Charles A. Cameron has reported 

 very favorably on it. The following are the conclusions at which 

 he arrives after a most careful examination of the process: (1) An 

 immense quantity of carbonic acid is produced in breweries, and 

 is at present wasted ; (2) a large proportion of this gas could be 

 condensed to liquid at a cost not exceeding M. per pound, but 

 probably less than Jd. per pound ; (3) the process of liquefying the 

 gas is successfully carried on at Guinness's brewery, Dublin ; (4) 

 the liquefied gas prepared at Guinness's brewery is perfectly free 

 from any peculiarity of flavor or odor ; (5) the carbonic acid pro- 

 duced at soda-water works costs about 4d. per pound ; (6) it is safer, 

 and in every way more desirable, to use in beverages carbonic acid 

 derived from a food substance, such as grain, than from mineral 

 soiu'ces; (7) the uses of liquid carbonic acid are numerous, im- 

 portant, and increasing. 



