FOR GENERAL READERS. 



Vol. I. — No. 9. (New Series.) 



MARCH 2nd, 1888. 



'Weekly, Price 3d. 

 . By Po3t. 3id. 



Current Events 



Scientific Table Talk 



Natural Gas (illus.) 



Storms — I. (illus.) 



New Safety Lamp (zV&x. ) ... ■ 



Dr. Dallinger on the Decomposition 

 of Organic Matter 



Colour-Blindness a Brain Affection ... 



General Notes 



Smoke Preventing Apparatus (illus.) 201 



The Bitterling and its Eggs (illus.) ... 



Some Effects of Difference in Size ... 



Microbiology 



Natural History : 



The Black Bear of America (illus.) 

 Cormorant Fishing in Japan 

 The Crossing of Cultivated Plants 



The Fascination of Serpents 



Geologists' Association ... 

 Royal Horticultural Society 

 Entomological Society ._ 

 Junior Engineering Society 

 Liverpool Microscopical Society 

 Liverpool Biological Society 

 Victoria Institute 



Correspondence : 



What Kind of Lever is an Oar ? 

 — Questions in Astronomy — The 

 Colouration of Butterflies 



Technical Education Notes 



Recent Inventions 



Announcements 



Diary for Next Week 



Sales and Exchanges ... 



Selected Books 



Notices „ 



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CURRENT EVENTS. 



Food Adulteration. — The report of Dr. Sedgwick 

 Saunders, the Public Analyst for the City of London, 

 which has just been issued for 1887, contains some 

 interesting particulars. During the past year the number 

 of samples examined in the City was 294, including 59 

 of arrowroot, 18 of beer, 4 of bread, 15 of butter and 

 butterine, 20 of coffee, 13 of disinfectants, 37 of drugs, 



2 of extract of meat, 18 of gin, 57 of milk, 22 of mustard, 



3 of pickles, 8 of pepper, 2 of rice, 14 of rum, 4 of tea, 

 18 of water, and 34 of whisky. Three milkmen were 

 prosecuted and fined, but most of the samples were 

 found to be genuine and unadulterated. Periodical 

 examinations of the New River water supply to the City 

 were made with the usual satisfactory results. On the 

 other hand, as might be expected, the samples of well 

 w^ter from the City of London Cemetery at Ilford were 

 more or less contaminated. Respecting cofTee, Dr. 

 Saunders says there is little doubt that when ground it 

 is largely mixed with chicory — as much as 40, 50, and 

 even 60 per cent. — but he thinks that this is a recog- 

 nised custom in the trade of the retail grocer, especially 

 in the poorer districts, and that, as a rule, the purchaser 

 is aware of the fact. It may be a custom of the trade, 

 and our poorer brethren may from necessity or expediency 

 put up with it, but it is hardly creditable that such an 

 adulterated mixture should be sold as coffee. If it 

 be wrong to sell butterine or margarine for butter, surely 

 it is equally wrong to sell chicory for coffee. 



Dr. Saunders mentions that the Local Government Board 

 estimate that Londoners are paying between ^^6 0,000 



^^^ £7°,°°° a year for water sold under the name of 

 milk, but that the leniency of justices make it difficult to 

 deal with this adulteration. In one district alone the 

 analyst reported that the milkmen received between 

 ;^7,ooo and ^^8,000 a year for water, while the total fines 

 inflicted amounted to ^100 only for that period. Milking 

 the pump may be very profitable to the so-called 

 " milk "-man, but the harm done in many cases to young 

 children who are mainly dependent on having bona-fide 

 cow's milk of good quahty is incalculable, and when 

 adulteration of this kind is proved the full fines should 

 be inflicted. Leniency is altogether misplaced. In the 

 matter of spirits, it appears that for some years past 

 about 23 per cent, of the total number of samples 

 examined under the Act in England and Wales have 

 been found adulterated with water, but this form of 

 tampering does not obtain to an appreciable extent in the 

 City of London. As regards tea, it is very satisfactory to 

 know that out of 511 samples examined by public 

 analysts only one was reported to be adulterated. 



Modern Advertising. — A queer instance 01 the rath- 

 less way in which the advertiser of to-day treats all 

 things, good and bad, as material, is afforded by a little 

 advertising book circulated by the owners of Holloway's 

 Pills. It contains a calendar setting forth exactly the 

 diseases we may expect in each month, and exactly how 

 we should treat each and all of them with the pills inter- 

 nally and the ointment externally ; and it gives many 

 valuable and interesting but not wholly accurate and 

 scientific items of knowledge ; among them standing out 

 conspicuously a sober revival of the old notion of the 



