Notes and Memoranda. 389 



NOTES AND MEMOEANDA. 



Removing the Husk from Grain. — M. Lemoine adopts a chemical method 

 for this purpose. For example, he places 100 kilogrammes of corn in a tub, and 

 pours over it 15 kilogrammes of sulphuric acid at 66% and stirs the mixture for 

 fifteen or twenty minutes, then he adds 50 kilogrammes of water, which he decants 

 after a few moments' contact and agitation. The fluid thus removed is reserved 

 for a use he promises to explain. The acid is then neutralized by subcarbonate of 

 soda or potash, and the grain thrown on a cloth with large meshes, and allowed 

 to dry for an hour, after which its dessication is effected on fresh cloths, placed 

 in an airy situation for several days. 



Copper Paint. — The Abbd Moigno describes in Cosmos a new pigment used 

 in the workshops of Mr. Oudry, of Auteuil. Its foundation depends upon the 

 possibility of reducing electrolytic copper to an impalpable powder, which being 

 combined with benzine, can be employed upon any surface as a paint. It possesses 

 an agreeable lustre, and will take bronze tints by the usual chemical means. By 

 reducing the quantity of copper, and adding bases of lead, zinc, or other metals, 

 M. Oudry obtains a series of paints said to possess great advantages over those 

 prepared with turpentine and ordinary oils. 



Webster's Oxygen Process. — Mr. Pepper describes the new and cheap 

 process for making oxygen in the Chemical Netos. Mr. Webster employs a furnace-, 

 containing a strong cast-iron vessel ten inches in diameter, and in this a smaller 

 vessel seven inches in diameter is placed, open at the top, and provided with an 

 orifice at its base, temporarily stopped with a piece of sheet-iron, so that when its 

 contents are exhausted, this pot may be removed, and its contents knocked out with 

 an iron bar. The outer vessel is connected by a pipe with a 30-gallon stone-ware 

 vessel, containing half-a-gallon of water, and eight stone-ware colanders, on which 

 48 lbs. of the residue of a former experiment are placed, and which acts as a 

 purifier. The inner pot is charged with 10 lbs. warm dry nitrate of soda, and 

 20 lbs. warm dry crude oxide of zinc, obtained from the so-called " galvanizing 

 baths." A cover is then luted on, and the heat employed only sufficient to give a 

 pasty character to the mass. Oxygen is speedily given off, accompanied by nitrous 

 fumes, which the purifier absorbs. The end of the process is to obtain a large 

 quantity of oxygen at a small cost ; but it is mixed with nitrogen to the average 

 extent of 41 per cent. It is expected that this mixture will prove useful to 

 augment the illuminating power of coal-gas, and in various metallurgical processes. 



Platino-cyanide of Magnesium. — This beautiful salt exhibits the phenome- 

 non of dichroism. In one view it is ruby red, and in another emerald green ; crys- 

 tallized on a slide, it is a magnificent object when viewed with the Lieberkuhn, and 

 dark well, or side silver reflector. With a little pains great variety of effect can 

 be obtained. The crystals that form at the edges of a drop of its solution often 

 make fan-shaped groups of prismatic needles, while the centre is occupied with 

 smaller groups arranged in star patterns, or other ornamental shapes. The angle 

 of the illumination should be changed while the object is under view. 



Tooth op Orycteropus Capensis. — Mr. Baker, of Holborn, has furnished 

 us with a little-known microscopic object of great beauty and interest, in the 

 shape of a section of a tooth, which appears to belong to an animal often erro- " 

 neously confounded with the ant-eaters, from which it differs by being furnished 

 with grinders and flat nails that are strong and curved. It burrows with great 

 facility, and feeds upon ants, which it catches with a long, strap-shaped, protrusile 

 tongue, covered with a viscous fluid. The popular name of this creature is 

 " ground pig;" the scientific appellation we have given above. It is three or four 

 feet long from the snout to the tail, and stands low. Physiologically the teeth 

 are beautiful examples of compound structure, resembling that of the Eagle Bay, 

 figured in Dr. Carpenter's book, The Microscope, 3rd edit., p. 704. In man, 

 and usually in the higher vertebrates, the centre of the tooth is excavated into a 

 single cavity containing the pulp, but in the class of teeth to which that of the 

 Orycteropus belongs, the cavities are many, and, as Dr. Carpenter observes, in his 

 Manual of Physiology, " we may regard a tooth of this kind as repeating in 

 each of the parts surrounding one of these canals the structure of the human 



