1865.] Ethnology. 89 



asserted that these stones undergo expansion at a red heat, but 

 gradually return to their normal dimensions ; and after a considerable 

 interval of time assume their original specific gravity. This state- 

 ment Professor Church cannot confirm. He found, in fact, that many 

 stones of the family did undergo expansion when exposed to a heat 

 sufficiently strong to fuse them, but that they remained permanently 

 reduced in density in consequence. At a red heat he found them all 

 practically unaffected. The Professor returned to the subject at the 

 meeting on December 1st, and confirmed the results he had previously 

 announced. 



Another valuable practical paper was read on November 17th, by 

 Dr. Marcet. The subject was the " Brine of Salted Meat." The practical 

 object of this paper was to show how large a quantity of nutritive 

 matter was wasted in the brine, and again when the salted meat was 

 soaked in water to prepare it for cooking. In both cases the waste 

 was easily avoided. To recover the nutritive matter from the brine 

 the author evaporates the latter at a moderate temperature to one-third 

 its bulk, decants the liquor from the salt deposited, and then removes 

 the remainder of the salt by dialyzation. In this way he obtained a 

 liquid which made a good and cheap soup. f To prevent waste in 

 salting, the author proposes to cut the meat into small pieces and place 

 it with ten or twenty per cent, of salt, in sausage skin or bladders, and 

 then to immerse these in a strong brine, and there leave them until 

 the meat is sufficiently impregnated. The skin, we ought to say, must 

 be quite full. When the meat is required for use, the skins have only 

 to be placed in fresh water for the salt to dialyze out. The author 

 pointed out that joints salted in the ordinary way might be made to 

 retain much nutritive matter if they were closely wrapped in skin or 

 bladder before they were soaked. A practical point of less general 

 importance was a suggestion by Dr. Marcet, that brine might be used 

 as a source of inkrcat, kreatinin and lactic acid. 



V. ETHNOLOGY. 



(Including the Proceedings of the Ethnological Society.) 



A chronicle of the progress of Ethnology is not the easiest thing to 

 write, for the simple reason that it is very doubtful how and when 

 progress is really made. It is perfectly true that we have many inde- 

 fatigable skull-measurers, voluminous writers, readers of papers, and 

 pamphleteers, both unitistic and pluralistic, or, if it be preferred, 

 moncgenistic and polygenistic ; but, as yet, there is for Ethnology 

 neither any such absolute definition of terms, nor any such agreement 

 as to bases of arrangement and classification as characterize every 

 other established science. What is considered right to-day, is too 

 often considered wrong on the morrow, and even its very name is a 

 subject of dispute, and strenuous efforts arc being made to merge the 

 long familiar cognomen of the " Science of Paces " into the more 

 modern and less euphonious designation compounded by those who 



