THE TECHNOLOGIST. [May 1, 1864. 



480 SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 



This juice, as obtained from the " dialysers," may now be employed in 

 making rich soups without any further preparation ; or it may be eva- 

 porated to a less or more concentrated state, and packed in hermetically 

 sealed tins for sale. The extract of meat thus obtained is in the highest 

 degree nutritive and wholesome, and well adapted for hospitals, for 

 ships' use, and for an army in the field. 



Mr. Whitelaw has also adapted his process for the use of ships at sea, 

 for the economisation of their brine, and for the improvement of the 

 food, and, consequently, the health of the men. 



The quantity of brine annually wasted is very great. In Glasgow 

 alone not less than 60,000 to 100,000 gallons are thrown away yearly ; 

 and if we take each gallon as equal in soup-producing power to 7 lbs. of 

 beef, some idea may be formed of the economic value of this process. 



The Madagascar Silkworm. — No country in the world appears 

 more eminently qualified by nature for the production of silk than the 

 island of Madagascar. Most of the caterpillars of the country cover 

 themselves with silky envelopes, which protect them from the incle- 

 mency of winter and the sudden showers of the summer season. Some 

 are naturally covered from their birth with a thick mantle, which grows 

 with them, leaving only the head and legs uncovered. Others spin 

 double and treble cocoons, and others again mix up various particles of 

 plants with their silk, combining them artistically ; and, lastly, there are 

 some which spin a common nest, in which they live under a republican 

 form of government, each individual spinning its own cocoon besides. 

 The ' Bulletin de la Societe d' Acclimitation ' contains a curious paper on 

 this subject, by M. Auguste Vinson, of La Reunion. He states that the 

 Hovas weave a kind of silk which they call landy ; and is obtained from 

 the worm that feeds on the leaves of ambrevade, or Angola pea (Cytisus 

 Cajanus). This silk is heavy, and has no gloss, but is exceedingly strong. 

 The natives sell the tissues they weave out of this silk very dear, and it 

 is therefore only the rich who wear them. King Radama II., who 

 dresses in the European fashion, wears trousers and a paletot made of 

 this silk, which, not being dyed, is of a gray colour, like unbleached 

 linen. The wealthy are buried in shrouds made of this silk, and it is 

 said that such shrouds entombed for centuries have been exhumed in a 

 perfect state of preservation. The ambrevade being an indigenous plant 

 of La Reunion, this Madagascar silkworm might be easily introduced 

 there. The insect is forty-five millimetres long ; its body is composed 

 of twelve segments, and covered with black sharp horny points all over. 

 The general hue is a chestnut-brown, but the abdomen has a longitudi- 

 nal rose-coloured streak between two other light brown ones. The 

 cocoon is seventy millimetres in circumference, and forty-five in length ; 

 it is very heavy, of a dirty gray colour, but interspersed with black 

 bristles. The chrysalis contained in the cocoon is edible, and considered 

 a delicacv by the Hovas, who eat it fried, as the Chinese do chrysa- 

 lids. 



