July 9, 1836 ] 



SCIEJsrCE. 



33 



Forty-five minutes after decapitation the intestines 

 were perfectly free from motion, and the access 

 of air to the abdominal cavity did not excite it. 

 On excitation of the two vagus nerves, movement 

 of the stomach and intestines was very evident, 

 extending as far as the transverse colon. Longet 

 had supposed that this action of the stomach took 

 place only when it Avas filled, but in the present 

 case it was enth'ely empty. On re-excitation, the 

 walls of the stomach folded in plications, and 

 drops of gastric fluid were visible over almost the 

 whole of its surface. The heart beat at the rate 

 of fifty-one pulsations per minute twelve minutes 

 after execution : it ceased entirely at the end of 

 the twentieth minute. These experiments bring 

 nothing unexpected, but they give final confirma- 

 tion to theories hitherto based only on vivisection 

 of animals, and extended to man by hypothesis. 

 They may also re-assure those physiologists who 

 have feared that conscious life might exist after 

 decapitation by the guillotine. 



— The utilization of sci'ap tin has exercised the 

 minds of many inventors who have seen a fortune 

 in it, if they could only separate the covering 

 metal from the sheet of iron beneath it. It is esti- 

 mated, says Engineering, that the supply of old 

 and scrap tin at London, Birmingham, Swansea, 

 Wolverhaaipton, Truro, Liverpool, and Glasgow, 

 amounts to 30,000 tons per year, and that this can 

 be obtained at 5s. per ton, or less. Of this weight, 

 five per cent is pure tin, which, in ingot form, is 

 worth £95 to £100 per ton ; while the iron, sepa- 

 rated from the tin, is worth about 40s. per ton. 

 Hence 20 tons of scrap, which can be bought for 

 £5, would realize, when the two metals are sepa- 

 rated, at least £130, a sum which allows a very 

 good margin to cover the cost of the manufactur- 

 ing operations. A company, called the Electro 

 metal extracting, refining, and plating company, 

 of 76 Finsbury Pavement, E.G., has been formed 

 to carry out a new process by which the tin is 

 stripped from the iron in a perfectly pure form, 

 while the foundation plate is unattacked. The 

 scrap is placed in a series of baths, through which 

 a current from a dynamo is sent ; and while there 

 the white metal is dissolved, and is afterwards 

 recovered in metallic state. It is said that the 

 operations are so inexpensive that a profit of £79 

 is realized from the treatment of every 20 tons 

 of scrap. The process is also set forth as being 

 applicable to mining refuse, tailings, and slags 

 containing gold, silver, copper, tin, etc., as well- 

 as to plating metals with zinc. 



— All of the original coast survey plain table 

 ■ sheets of the water-front of New York, Brooklyn, 



and Jersey Gity, have been published by photo- 



lithography on the full scale of the surveys, and 

 are now ready for use. A chart has been prepared, 

 and is now ready for publication, which will fill a 

 long-felt want by supplying in one sheet all of the 

 waters of Washington Territory north of Gray's 

 Harbor. This chart covers the coast from Tacoma 

 to Nanimo. 



— Professor Baird and the usual complement of 

 officials composing the summer force of the fish 

 commission left Washington on Tuesday last, July 

 6, for Wood's Holl, Mass., to be absent till October. 



— The second number of the Political science 

 quarterly, edited by the faculty of political sci- 

 ence of Golumbia college, contains the following 

 articles : Andrew Jackson, by Anson D. Morse ; 

 The Constitution in civil war, by William A. 

 Dunning, Ph.D.; Ambiguous citizenship, by Hon. 

 William L. Scruggs ; The Ghristian socialist, by 

 Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D. ; The legal tender 

 question, by Harry Harmon Neill ; Constitutional 

 crisis in Norway, by Prof. John W. Burgess ; The 

 conflict in Egypt, I., by John Eliot Bo wen, Ph.D. 



— The passage of the Suez Canal, which until 

 recently occupied from thirty-six to forty-eight 

 hours, can be made, now that navigation during 

 the night is possible, in sixteen hours for vessels 

 fitted with the electric light apparatus. This im- 

 portant advance is the result of a very interesting 

 report by Commander Hector, of the steamer 

 Carthage, belonging to the Peninsular and orien- 

 tal company, and addressed to the directors. This 

 report was written after the Carthage made the 

 first continuous passage, under the authorization 

 of the Canal company, given the 1st of December, 

 1885. The Carthage arrived at Suez after a run 

 from Port Said of eighteen hours. The actual 

 running time was sixteen hours, there having 

 been two delays caused by impediments in the 

 channel ; the mean speed made was 5.43 miles 

 per hour. The passage as far as Ismailia was the 

 most interesting, because it was the first attempt 

 to take a large vessel through at night, with the 

 aid of the electric light. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*♦* Correspondents are requested to he as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



The new school of economists and the history of 

 economics. 



Permit me to make a correction of a misstatement, 

 no doubt inadvertent, in Professor Ely's article in 

 the last issue of Science, on the economic discussion. 

 He says that the * new school' of economists '' were 

 the first in America to give a proper position to Adam 

 Smith, Ricardo, and Malthus, by the introduction of 



