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SCIENCE 



[Vol. XVIII. N©. 462 



coasts, it is the saoie. These animals, too, are less serviceable as 

 regards speed and endurance. Herr Lehmann states it as a law 

 that the occurrence of the camel finds its limits wherever the 

 monthly average vapor tension in the air exceeds twelve millime- 

 tres. 



^ A hundred years ago the natives of the valley of C'hamonix 

 who took travellers up the mountain suffered as much as their 

 employers from physical sensations ascribed, no doubt rightly, lo 

 the rarity of the air. They were unable to walk more than a few 

 paces without baiting. Last autumn, says the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Geographical Society, travellers who walked in early morn- 

 ing from the hut under the Bosses (14,000 feet) to the top (15,780 

 feet) had the company of five Chamoniards. They went up at a 

 fair pace without resting. Arrived on the top, without a mo- 

 ment's pause, the men took their spades and shovels and began 

 digging. They asserted that they did only about a third less work 

 in the day than in the valley; and that they suBfered no inconve- 

 nience from a prolonged stay in the Bosses Imt; slept well, and 

 ate largely. Their work was to excavate a tunnel in the summit 

 ridge about thirty feet below the top. The object of this tunnel 

 vyas to reach rock, in which a shelter-cave might be excavated. 

 No rock had been found up to Sept. 11. The whole summit-ridge 

 seemed to consist of compact opaque snow of exquisite purity. 

 The rocks, a short dislance from the top on the Italian side, were 

 not considered available by the Frenchmen who were desu'ous of 

 erecting the shelter. It vi'as proposed, as no rock had been 

 reached under the top, to cai-ry there a wooden framework, in 

 shape and size not unlike a bathing-machine, and fix it in the 

 mouth of the gallery, in the hope that it might be dug out next 

 summer and serve as a refuge for such scientific observers as 

 rnight not be satisfied with the commodious hut near the Bosses. 



— It has been said of more than one great and sudden sorrow, 

 tjiat it has echpsed the gayety of nations, and the expression 

 would argue a supposition that nations were, as a rule, naturally 

 mirthful, says the London Spectator. Indeed, that seems to be 

 the general idea that the world entertains of itself — namely, that 

 it has a natural bias towards mirth and jolity, and only deviates 

 into melancholy under the stre.ss of untoward circumstances; that 

 it numbers more inhabitants ihat are glad than those that are 

 sorry; and tliat Jean qui rit predominates largely over Jean qui 

 pleure. It is a comforting delusion — if it happens to be a delu- 

 sion — and one that we should not wish to dissipate. Neverthe- 

 less, we cannot but express our doubt of its realir.j, for, should it 

 ever have been true of the past, we should be driven to the most 

 melancholy belief that the world is growing sadder as it is grow- 

 ing wiser, and that gayety and laughter are gradually decaying 

 and departing from among us. That, evidently, is the opinion of 

 one who has done his best to contribute to the mirth of his fellow- 

 countrymen. Mr. James Payn fears that it is only too certain 

 that people laugh less to-day than they used to do, and, at the 

 same time as he deplores the fact, professes his inability to ac- 

 count for it. Of the two suggestions that he makes towards the 

 solution of the problem, neither seems to us to be sufficient by 

 itself to account for so dismal a change, though we have no doubt 

 that both are factors in it. The idea of the vulgarity of laughter 

 is neither strong enough nor sufficiently widely disseminated to 

 have any real influence in quenching the natural expression of 

 mirth. The innate sadness and dulness of democracy are probably 

 much more powerful factors, in that the undeniable growth of 

 democratic ideas among us must have brought about a correspond- 

 ing decrease of mirth that provokes to laughter. But that, too, we 

 should think, can hardly be sufficient by itself to have wrought 

 any really perceptible change upon the mirthful spirit of the times ; 

 and yet we are fain to confess oui'selves at a loss to advance 

 any better reason for the decay of laughter, which we, as well 

 as Mr. Payn, believe to be taking place. "Laughter holding 

 both his sides" is well nigh dead among us. so rarely is it heard; 

 and the reason for its death, most people will say, is not because 

 such laughter is vulgar and unseemly to the civilized man but 

 because there is really nothing to-day to laugh at. Why there 

 should be nothing now to laugh at, they would find it mor.^ diffi- 

 cult to explain. Hardly could they contend that we are less 



ludicrous than were our ancestors, or less capable of recognizing 

 v\-hat is ludicrous. It mu=t be some other source of laughter that 



is wanting in us. . ■ 



— Hitherto it has not been possible to get lead to adhei'e to 

 iron without the aid of tin since lead has little or no affinity for 

 iron, but in a new process this difficult feat is accomplished, the 

 coating being effected with a bath of lead of about 98i per cent 

 purity. The plates or other articles to be coated, according to 

 Engineering, are first pickled in a bath to remove scale. Through 

 this batli a weak current of electricity is passed, which is said to 

 reduce the time required by one-third. From this bath the arti- 

 cles are passed as usual into another of lime water, which neutral- 

 izes the acid, and thence into a third of clear water. They are 

 then immersed in a fourth bath consisting of a neutral solution of 

 zinc and stannic chlorides, obtained by dissolving granulated zinc 

 and tin in hydrochloric acid. From this bath they are passed into 

 a drying chamber heated by steam, where the moisture on them 

 from the la;t bath is evaporated, leaving behind a deposit of the 

 mixed metallic chlorides, which protects the plates from oxida- 

 tion. When dried these plates are ready to be passed into a bath 

 of molten lead. On issuing from this bath the plates are found 

 to be coated with a uniform and very adherent layer of lead. 

 Though perfectly uniform this layer is nevertheless very thin. 

 Tlie ductility and slrength of the iron are not decreased by the 

 process, and a plate can be bent and closed, and again opened out, 

 without breaking the coating. In the case of galvanized iron, 

 bending the plate to a sharp angle causes the coating to crack. 

 Samples of ship-pUtes have been coated and the riveting after- 

 wards done in the usual way without breaking the coating, which, 

 we may also remark, takes paint very well. The thinness of the 

 coating is remarkable, as 3 oz. per square foot of plate proves 

 sufficient, whereas 3 oz. of spelter are in general required in gal- 

 vanizing. The inventors claim that an additional economy will 

 be effected by the fact that there is no precipitate or sediment de- 

 posit in their melting tanks, as occurs with zinc, while, at the 

 same time, the molten lead has no effect on the material of which 

 the bath is constructed, which may, therefore, last indefinitely. 



— Drs. Emmerich and Mastraum have published £in interesting 

 article in a German Hygienic journal on the cause of immunity 

 from infectious diseases and their treatment, especially of swine 

 erysipelas, and a new method of j^rotective vaccination for it. 

 Emmerich, according to Lancet, published in the jear 1886 his 

 doctrine that the cause of immunity from infectious diseases is a 

 modification of the chemical process going on in the cells, so that 

 the new cliemicai compounds formed act as microbe killers with- 

 out doing any harm to the cells themselves. In consequence of 

 the results of a series of experiments, Emmerich concluded that 

 this antibacterial poison acts destructively on all the microbes 

 within a tew hours after their introduction into the organism. 

 The publication of this doctrine having met with a good deal of 

 opposition, he repeated his experiments, and again arrived at the 

 same result, showing that the explanation of immunity from in- 

 fectious diseases proposed in 1886 was justified. Granted the 

 correctness of this, it follows that extracts from the tissue of any 

 animal enjoying immunity are remedies against the corresponding 

 infectious disease. Further experiments are now reported by 

 Drs. Emmerich and Mastraum which show that an extract from 

 the various tissues and the blood of rabbits which have been made 

 proof against swine erysipelas is an excellent remedy for the dis- 

 ease, and that a hypodermic injection of the extract can serve as 

 a rational protective inoculation. A rabbit was inoculated by 

 having injected into the posterior auricular vein the fifth of a 

 cubic centimetre of a fresh broth culture of swine erysipelas, di- 

 luted with fifty times its volume of distilled water. In the course 

 of the following week or two a series of hypodermic injections of 

 the same liquid was administered. For the purpose of preparing 

 a liquid extract suitable for therapeutic or prophylactic purposes, 

 the organs of the rabbit were cut up and submitted to a pressure 

 of from 300 to 400 atmospheres, and the expressed juice filtered 

 into sterilized bottles. A large number of white mice as well as 

 labbits were now inoculated with the swine erysipelas, and at the 

 same time, or very shortly afterwards, an injection of the liquid 



