499 ) 
i88 3 .] ' 
NOTES. 
In visiting the Engineering Exhibition at the Islington Agricul- 
tural Hall, Islington, we were particularly struck with the 
aluminium alloys exhibited by the Aluminium Crown Metal 
Company working under Webster’s Patent. It seems to us that, 
for the manufacture of scientific apparatus, the days of brass 
are ended. The superior hardness and strength of the new 
metal, its lightness, and immunity from the oxidising and sul- 
phurising aCtion of the air are most signal advantages, which 
must more than compensate for its higher price. 
The “ Textile World ” remarks The bane of the admi- 
nistration of the South Kensington Museum is that its contents 
are being perpetually shuffled about, as if it were meant merely 
to amuse the public with a sort of colonial kaleidoscope. Will 
it be believed that instead of showing the portion of Mr. Clarke’s 
textile fabrics which are exhibited in the India Museum in com- 
bination with the old historical collections of these manufactures, 
the latter have all been removed out of sight to make more 
room — and far more than was necessary — for the former, thus 
throwing away all the advantages manufacturers and other ex- 
perts would have derived from a close comparison of the two 
collections ? Moreover, the new chintzes and carpets are without 
labels, even general ones, and are so inartistically hung that they 
produce a most slovenly effeCt. The lower gallery in which they 
are shown being also very closely packed w'ith the miscellaneous 
collections of the Prince of Wales’s Indian presents, and the 
miscellaneous loans of the Royal Asiatic Society, the whole 
place has the appearance rather of a cosmopolitan mercantile 
store than of a scientifically arranged art museum.” How is it 
that nothing more is heard of the promised India and Colonial 
Museum which was to have been ereCted in a central and acces- 
sible place, the Thames Embankment ? 
According to Drs. Weir, Mitchell, and Reichert (“ Medical 
Press ”) snake-venoms have always an acid reaction, re-dissolve 
in water after drying, and contain no alkaloid. They consist of 
three distinct proteids. The first of these is a peptone, less 
aCtive than the combined poison, but inducing oedema and putre- 
faction ; the second (the “ cobric acid ” of Dr. Winter Blyth ?) 
is the most virulent, and in a few minutes after injection produces 
infiltration of blood into the neighbouring tissues ; the aCtion of 
the third is doubtful. 
