Skptember 19, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



i6r 



and bottom of the tank, and are protected from the yarn to be 

 bleached by a wooden framework. What chemical re-actions take 

 Ijlace during the 100 hours required for charging the solution 

 cannot be accurately determined; but that the system is regenera- 

 tive there can be little doubt, owing to the fact that bleaching is 

 performed by the fixed chlorine, and consequently there can be no 

 loss of free chlorine, as is the case with bleach ing-powder. 



— An Italian correspondent writes to the Lancet, ''An occur- 

 rence as strange as it is tragic is just reported from Sicily. At 

 Milazzo, a seaport of that island, a bark had put in after a voy- 

 age from Genoa, having in her hold, by way of ballast, a number 

 of vrine-butts, which, inrrusted on their insides with tartrates, 

 had, to give them the necessary weight, been tilled with salt 

 water. On coming into harbor, these butts had to be emptied be- 

 fore refilling them with wine; and for that pm-pose one of the 

 crew, having raised the trap door admitting to the hold, went 

 down to tap them and run their contents through the drain holes 

 into the sea. No sooner had the bungs been knocked out than 

 forth rushed a poisonous gas, which took the man's breath away 

 and made him fall, a corps-e, into the escaping salt water. In 

 ignorance of what had happened, a second mariner, then a third, 

 and iinally a fourth, went below; each, in turn, to be asphyxiated 

 instantaneously, and to fall headlong into the salt water, now of 

 some depth in the hold. As the butts continued to empty, the 

 poisonous gas increased ; and the captain, wondering that none 

 of the four men re-appeared, went, out of curiosity, to the trap- 

 door, only to receive a tremendous rush of the gas in his face, and 

 to fall below, asphyxiated and drowned. The cabin-boy, the sole 

 survivor out of a crew of six, seeing what had happened, shouted 

 wildly for help to the bystanders on the quay. Assistance soon 

 came; and the stifling fumes, by this time escaped or so diluted as 

 to be innocuous, admitted of the new-comers looking down into the 

 hold. There were the five men, quite dead, floating in the water. 

 The corpses were hoisted up with ropes; and the medical officers, 

 who had now arrived, pronounced them past recovery." We give 

 this story for what it is worth. 



— The following sensational and untrue paragraph (dated St. 

 Xiouis, Sept. 11) has been going the rounds of the press, evidently 

 an the interest of the producers of Ceylon tea, who are trying to 

 make a market in this country for their tea. says the American 

 Grocer : " G. E. Martin, who is a resident of Ceylon and an exten- 

 sive coffee -planter there, owning, with his brother, two of the 

 largest estates on the island, was interviewed here to-day, and 

 ■confirms the report of the failure of the coffee-crop. He said, ' I 

 cannot explain how, but coffee will no longer make a good crop 

 in the Far East, not only in Ceylon and Arabia, but also in the 

 other coffee raising districts. I have just received a letter from 

 my father, in which he informs me that our estate must iuimedi- 

 ately be put into tea and fruit, as there is no longer any chance of 

 making a profitable coffee-crop. We shall lose fifty thousand 

 dollars this year on our crop, and it is generally so throughout 

 the coffee-growing districts. In South America, which I visited 

 before coming to this country, the same situation prevails. The 

 crop will not grow. I can see no other result than that we must 

 stop drinking coffee. We can no longer raise it, and the countries 

 where it will grow are already exhausted.' " A few facts will 

 show the utter fallacy of the statement, the only part of which 

 that is true being the fact that Ceylon is out of the race as a pro- 

 ducer of coffee. It is true that in Ceylon the industry has declined, 

 the exports of coffee decreasing from a maximum crop from which 

 995,493 hundredweight were exported in 1873, to 86,440 hundred- 

 weight in 1889, the decrease being due to a disease which de- 

 stroyed the trees. In 1873, when the Ceylon crop was the largest 

 on record, the production in Brazil permitted exports of about 

 150,000 tons, against an average annual export for the five 

 years 1885-89 of 319,881 tons, — an increase in production of over 

 100 per cent. In Sumatra the crop of recent years has been below 

 the average. In Java the supply does not increase, the crop vary- 

 ing, as it does in all countries, above and below an average yield, 

 which for the eleven years permitted an average annual export of 

 :1, 167,009 piculs. The production of the world in 1888-89 was 

 estimated by W. Schoffer & Co., high authorities in Europe and 



this country, at 13,831,600 centners, or 631,489 tons,-^quite an 

 advance over 1879, when N. P. Van Den Berg of Batavia esti- 

 mated the production at 483,087 tons; which, in turn, was a large 

 advance over the 324,787 tons produced in 1860. Coffee-planta- 

 tions are being extended in Mexico and the different countries of 

 Central and South America, because there is at present, and has 

 been for several years, an immense profit in coffee-culture, high 

 prices placing a premium on the extension of the industry. In a 

 few years more we look for a production far enough ahead of the 

 w^orld's requirements to again inaugiirate an era of low-priced 

 coffee, notwithstanding the Ceylon estates are no longer produc- 

 tive. 



— We learn from Nature that countless swarms of rats peri- 

 odically make their appearance in the bush country of the South 

 Island, New Zealand. They invariably come in the spring, and 

 apparently periods of about four years intervene between their 

 visits. In a paper published in the new volume of the ' 'Transac- 

 tions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute," Mr. Joseph 

 Rutland brings together some inieresting notes on the bush-rat 

 (l\his maorium). In size and general appearance it differs much 

 from the common brown rat. The average weight of full-grown 

 specimens is about two ounces. The fur on the upper portions of 

 the body is dark brown, inclining to black; on the lower por- 

 tions, white or grayish white. The head is shorter, the snout 

 less sharp, and the countenance less fierce, than in the brown 

 species. On the open ground, bush-rats move comparatively 

 slowly, evidently finding much difficulty in surmounting clods 

 and other impediments : hence they are easily taken and destroyed. 

 In running they do not arch the back as much as the brown rat. 

 This awkwardness on the ground is at once exchanged for ex- 

 treme activity when they climb trees. These they ascend with 

 the nimbleness of flies, running out lo the very extremities of the 

 branches with amazing quickness: hence, when pursued, they in- 

 variably make for trees, if any are within reach. The instinct 

 which impels them to seek safety by leaving the ground is evi- 

 dently strong. A rat, on being disturbed by a plough, ran for a 

 while before the moving implement, and then up the horse-i-eins, 

 which were dragging along the ground. Another peculiarity of 

 these animals is, that, when suddenly startled or pursued, they 

 cry out with fear, thus betraying their whereabouts, — an indiscre- 

 tion of which the common rat is never guilty. . 



— In a paper recently read before the "Vienna Academy, says 

 Nature of Aug. 38, 1890, Herren Elster and Geitel gave the results 

 of a year and a half's observations of atmospheric electricity on 

 the north side of Wolfenbiittel (bordering an extensive meadow). 

 They used a stand carrying a petroleum-flame, and connected by 

 insulated wire with an electroscope. A marked difference was 

 found in the phenomena of spring, summer, and autumn, on the 

 one hand, and winter on the other. In the former the daily varia- 

 tion of the fall of potential showed a distinct maximum between 

 8 and 9 am., as Exner found at St. Gilgen, and a distinct mini- 

 mum between 5 and 6 p.m., whereas Exner found a maximum 

 about 6. In winter there is great irregularity; but a weak mini- 

 mum occurs about 11 a.m., and a more decided maximum about 

 7 P.M. It appears to the authors that other factors than humidity, 

 with which Exner seeks to explain the variations, are concerned 

 in the case. When the temperature goes below zero, cold mist 

 being then generally present, there is often a rather sharp rise in 

 the values, the aqueous vapor having then less action. Rainfall 

 in a neighboring region lowers the fall of potential both in winter 

 and summer, and a disturbance of the normal course will announce 

 a coming change in places stdl unclouded. Snow, it seems, rather 

 raises the values. It has been shown by Linss that the course of 

 the fall of potential is inversely as the coefficient of dispersion of 

 the air for electricity; which, again, depends not only on the dust 

 and aqueous vapor present, but also, according to Arrhenius's 

 theory, on a sort of electrolytic or dissociative action of the sun's 

 rays on the atmosphere (thus it has been shown that electricity 

 escapes from a conductor under the influence of ultra-violet rays). 

 The authors find their results support this latter view. They con- 

 sider that the electric processes during formation of precipitates are 

 the chief cause of the disturbance of the normal condition, 



