214 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
the great drought of the past summer had reduced the cattle 
and sheep to such a weak state that they were unable to bear 
up against the severity of the winter. In the province of 
Mazagan alone, forty thousand cattle and thirty thousand 
sheep are said to have perished ; 75 per cent, of the animals, 
on the average of the attacks, being swept away. 
Facts and Observations. 
Coal and Iron in the United States. — The quantity 
of iron made with bituminous coal in Pennsylvania, in 1868, 
was 194,000 tons (in round numbers), as compared with 
191,072 tons in 1867. The production of iron made with 
anthracite coal in Pennsylvania, in last year, amounted to 
671,9-55 tons, as compared with 594,270 tons in 1867. The 
production of anthracite iron effected last year in Pennsyl- 
vania involved a consumption of 1,5 12, 0G0 tons of coal. The 
production of rolled iron in Pennsylvania last year is com- 
puted to have been 520,000 tons, as compared with 490,081 
tons in 1867. Railway iron figured in the total for 1868 to 
the extent of 276,500 tons, against 245,081 tons of the 
previous year. In 1868, the rolling mills of Pennsylvania 
consumed 1,210,000 tons of coals, of which 380,000 were 
anthracite, and the remainder bituminous. It is curious to 
observe that, notwithstanding the increase in the demand for 
railway iron in the United States since the close of the war, 
the native productions do not appear to have been very 
materially extended . — Popular Science Review. 
Medical Science at the British Association. — 
The only medical communication of importance at the 
British Association meeting was that of Dr. B. W. Richard- 
son, in the form of a Report on Anaesthetics. The author 
dealt with the chemistry of the whole series of complex 
organic compounds relating to this class of bodies. He 
showed that they produced only marked effects when intro- 
duced subcutaneously, and that administered in this way 
they were twice as active as given in other ways. He again 
declared against the supposed advantage of alcohol as a 
food. — Ibid. 
The Formation of Oil in Olives. — At the meeting 
of the Vienna Academy of Sciences on October 21, a memoir 
