56 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[July 20, 1888. 



production. While this kind of contract is perhaps 

 legal, it is disreputable to the purchaser. A man under 

 necessity for the means of a livelihood may make such 

 a sale of himself without blame, but the man who buys 

 cannot in any way get a sound scientific reputation. 

 But, whatever the law may be, the moral obliquity and 

 intellectual poverty that such a transaction implies on 

 the part of the purchaser are too plain for dispute. 

 We must here draw a distinction. If, as it sometimes 

 happens, a man of science comes upon certain ideas and 

 hands them over to an assistant to work out, giving 

 him instructions how this is to be done, we must hold 

 that the originator retains by right the credit of the 

 work. The relation of the two is like that of the archi- 

 tect and the mason. But if a man buys, as our worthy 

 contemporary intimates, what he has neither conceived 

 nor executed, and publishes it as his own, he is simply 

 an impostor." 



The Longitude of Paris. — We understand that the 

 details of arrangement for redetermining the difference of 

 longitude between Paris and Greenwich have been 

 settled between the Astronomer Royal and Mr. Lcewy, 

 of the Bureau des Longitudes and Paris Observatory. It 

 has been decided to use the geodetic station at Mont- 

 souris, which has already been connected with several 

 important points in Europe, as the French station and 

 the Royal Observatory as the British. Two English and 

 two French observers will take part in the operations, 

 which will probably commence in September next. In 

 1854 the work was done by one observer from each ob- 

 servatory, the observations being made by the observer 

 noting the time and estimating the fractions of seconds at 

 which the stars used passed over the wires of the transit 

 instruments, and galvanometer needles were deflected. 

 On the present occasion the transits and times of deflec- 

 tion will be registered on chronographs. This work is 

 looked upon as most important by astronomers and 

 geodesists,as it will connect Greenwich with the continental 

 surveys which have of recent years been made with a 

 very high degree of accuracy. 



Archaeological Find in a Peat Moss. — On Thurs- 

 day, June 28th, the workmen employed by Mr. Gordon, 

 of Fowlisters, in cutting peat in the moss, "Hen Heads," 

 on the westmost shoulder of the Hill of Aultmore, dug 

 out from the moss a large kit of fatty matter, which 

 had certainly been placed there by some of the inhabi- 

 tants of that district a very long time ago, as about 

 fifteen feet of moss had grown on the top of the place 

 where it was found. This fatty matter was encased in a 

 jar made of tree bark and surrounded with a basket of 

 wicker work, some of the wattles of which were nicely 

 plaited together. The matter, which is quite hard round 

 the outer edge, is somewhat in the form of a miniature 

 corn rick, tapered to the point from the rim of the jar. 

 The thick part of the body, which, from the impression 

 of the bark jar, resembles in appearance part of the 

 trunk of a tree, measures in circumference 5ft. 6in. and 

 in height about 3ft. 5m., and weighs nearly 2cwt. Unfortu- 

 nately one of the workmen, actuated no doubt by a desire 

 to see if there was anything worth looking after inside, 

 cut off the top, which act has marred the original form 

 considerably. Nothing, however, was found inside. The 

 wholccontents seems to have been a solid mass of prepared 

 fat, which time has turned into what is known now as 



adipocere. The whole find has been carefully deposited 

 in the Keith Museum. 



Sophisticated Wine. — The death of eleven persons in 

 the South of France, traceable to arsenic in the wine sold 

 by a local merchant, has directed attention to a new pro- 

 cess of sophisticating wine. Mouillage has long been a 

 custom in the trade. It consists in multiplying the 

 quantity of a good wine in the following manner : A 

 quantity of good wine is purchased, and to it is added an 

 equal quantity of a much cheaper sort. Sometimes water 

 is also added. This is the mouillage. The process does 

 not, however, end here, for the eye and the palate of a 

 fairly good judge, to say nothing of the analyst, would 

 easily detect the fraud. The doctored wine is flat to the 

 taste, and spoiled in colour. The palate of the taster and 

 the skill of the analyst have now to be cheated. This is 

 effected by adding alcohol. Sometimes the alcohol is 

 added pure; sometimes it is introduced in the form ot 

 glucose from which alcohol is derived by fermentation. 

 There remains the colour. Those who have travelled 

 much in France may have noticed acres of tall flowers 

 called hollyhocks, and wondered for what purpose they 

 were grown. The petals of these flowers afford a 

 decoction which is capable of restoring the colour to the 

 wine without revealing its presence to the chemical 

 analyst. This was the old and harmless method ; but it 

 appears that we have grown less scrupulous and less 

 careful, for in the case of the wine which occasioned the 

 deaths alluded to, it was found that coal tar colours had 

 been substituted for the hollyhock petals. The matter is 

 yet under investigation ; but it is said that some arsenic 

 was contained in the colouring agent. — Industries. 



The Public Health. — The Registrar-General's return 

 for the week ending July 7th shows that the deaths 

 registered last week in 28 great towns of England and 

 Wales correspond to an annual rate of I5'0 per 1,000 of 

 their aggregate population, which is estimated at 

 9,398,273 persons in the middle of this year. The six 

 healthiest places were Brighton, Nottingham, Leicester, 

 Birkenhead, Hudderpfield, and Halifax. In London 

 2,348 births and 1,211 deaths were registered. Allow- 

 ance made for increase of population, the births were 

 332, and the deaths 372, below the average numbers in 

 the corresponding weeks of the last ten years. The 

 annual death-rate per 1,000 from all causes, which had 

 been I4'5 and i5 - i in the preceding two weeks, declined 

 again last week to 148. During the 13 weeks of last 

 quarter the death-rate averaged i6'9 per 1,000, which 

 was 3'0 below the mean rate in the corresponding 

 periods of the ten years 1878-87. The 1,21 r deaths in- 

 cluded 23 from measles, ten from scarlet fever, 29 from 

 diphtheria, 31 from whooping-cough, 7 from enteric 

 fever, 2 from ill-defined forms of continued fever, 51 

 from diarrhoea and dysentery, 3 from cholera and 

 choleraic diarrhoea, and not one from small-pox or from 

 typhus; thus, 156 deaths were referred to these diseases, 

 being 175 below the corrected average weekly number. 

 In Greater London, 3,130 births and 1,502 deaths were 

 registered, corresponding to annual rates of 29^5 and 

 14-2 per 1,000 of the population. In the Outer Ring 

 six deaths from diphtheria and six from whooping-cough 

 were registered. The fatal cases of diphtheria included 

 two in Tottenham and two in Walthamstow sub- 

 districts. 



