504 
POPULAE SCIENCE EE VIEW. 
On the other hand, Mr. George Remington is of opinion that a tunnel on 
the site proposed by Mr. Hawkshaw is impracticable on account of the difficulty 
he anticipates in keeping down the water in a chalk excavation of that 
magnitude. He therefore proposes another line for the tunnel between 
Dungeness and Cape Grisnez, which, entirely avoiding the chalk, passes 
through the Wealden formation, consisting chiefly of strong clay. The 
tunnel would be twenty-six miles in length from shore to shore. On this 
Toute in mid-channel there is an extensive shoal with only eleven feet of 
water upon it at low-water spring tides, where Mr. Remington proposes to 
construct a shaft protected by a breakwater. 
MEDICAL SCIENCE. 
Muscular Force the Consequence of Combustion. — It has been hitherto 
supposed that muscular energy was the result of certain changes in the nitro- 
genous or albuminous constituents of food and of the tissue ; but recent 
researches show that this view is no longer tenable, and that the only intelli- 
gible hypothesis is that the combustion of the hydrocarbons is the source of 
all the mechanical power which animals display. Of the recent investigations 
upon this point, a very capital summary was given by Mr. Grove, in his late 
address to the British Association. Trauee, says Mr. Grove, has been 
prominent in advancing this view, and experiments detailed in a paper 
published this year by two Swiss Professors, Drs. Fich and Wislicenus, 
which were made by and upon themselves, in an ascent of the Faulhorn, 
have gone far to confirm it. Having fed themselves before and during the 
ascent upon starch fat and sugar, and avoiding all nitrogenous compounds, 
they found that such food was amply sufficient to supply the force required 
for the journey, and that they felt no exhaustion. By appropriate chemical 
examination they ascertained that there was no notable increase in the 
oxidation of the nitrogenized constituents of the body. After calculating 
the mechanical equivalents of the combustion effected, they then state as 
their first conclusion, that “ the burning of protein substances cannot be the 
only source of muscular power, for we have heard of two cases in which men 
performed more measurable work than the equivalent of the amount of heat 
which, taken at an absurdly high figure, could be calculated to result from 
the burning of the albumen.” 
Poisonous Effects of Bisulphide of Carbon. — The toxicological consequences 
of the administration of the vapour of sulphide of carbon to animals, have 
been very fully demonstrated by M. Cloez. When air, containing of its 
volume of the vapour, is allowed to act upon the system, it produces 
serious effects, which, if not counteracted, end in death. M. Cloez has 
performed numerous experiments on mammals, birds, and reptiles. Those 
on rats are most instructive. A rat of large size was placed under a bell- 
glass, of a capacity of 17 litres, and a piece of cotton wool saturated with 
