80 ON THE SALUBRITY OF MARINE ATMOSPHERES. 



(Canarium geniculatum). — White. Scarce in the Pegu 



valley. Large and valuable timber. 



(Millingtonia simplicifolia). — White. Found in the forests 



of the Pegu valley. Not very plentiful. Valuable as a timber, from its 

 weight and strength. 



(Aglaia spectabilis). — Red .Found along the banks of the 



rivers in the Pegu and Tounghoo districts. Large, and affords a light, 

 serviceable timber, stronger than American pine, and easily wrought. 



ON THE SALUBRITY OF MARINE ATMOSPHERES. 



BY THE HON. RICHARD HILL. 



" The sight and sound of the ocean are as refreshing to the exhausted 

 spirit as the breeze that blows from it is to the exhausted body." The air 

 from it is redolent of health. It has an odour of its own, a peculiarly 

 refreshing scent from the presence of iodine. M. Chatin, in the valuable 

 papers on the iodine in mineral, but more especially in vegetable bodies, 

 in the Comptes Rendus of the Academy of Sciences, has shown that rapid 

 volatilisation, when heat acts on water, gives out abundantly to the atmo- 

 sphere the iodine the water contains. He estimates that the 4,000 litres of 

 air which traverse the lungs of a man in twelve hours, hold the same 

 quantity as one litre of drinkable water moderately iodised. The iodine 

 breathed from the air is fixed in respiration ; and if the atmosphere of ill- 

 ventilated rooms and crowded places is deprived of it, then the fresh air, 

 and above all, the fresh sea-air, where a volatile combination of it is given 

 out constantly, possesses it in profuse abundance. Fermented liquors and 

 wines contain iodine, but milk is richer in iodine than wine. Inde- 

 pendently of ' its varying in milk with the soil on which the cow or the 

 goat feeds, the proportion of iodine in that animal secretion is in the 

 inverse ratio of the quantity yielded. Eggs contain much iodine : a fowl's 

 egg, weighing 50 grains, contains more iodine than a quart of cow's milk. 



Iodine exists in aquatic, but not in terrestrial plants ; at least, it cannot 

 be detected in them. Plants living in running waters, or in large collec- 

 tions of water capable of being agitated by the winds, contain more iodine 

 than those in stagnant water. Plants partially immersed in water yield it 

 in a certain degree ; but the same plants, when grown dry, do not develop 

 it ; and the confervse, nymphese, and ranunculuses, which are all equally 

 rich in iodine in running waters, are all equally poor producers of it in 

 ponds and marshes. The terrestrial cruciferse, such as the cabbage and 

 horse-radish, contain no iodine ; while the water-cress possesses it, in 

 common with the sagittaria and ranunculus. 



