1885.] 
Notes . 
183 
According to “ Ciel et Terre” tanners predict rain when the 
liquid in their tan-pits rises to a higher level. 
• Dr. J. Seegen (“ Biolog. Central Blatt ”) sums up his results 
on the formation of sugar as follows : they confirm the conclu- 
sion that sugar, in a normal constituent of the blood, ranges in 
dogs from 0*1 to 0*15 per cent. The blood on leaving the liver 
contains twice as much sugar as that entering the organ. In 
three animals, weighing respectively 7, 10, and 41 kilos., the 
quantities of blood issuing from the liver in twenty-four hours 
were 179, 233, and 423 litres. Consequently 179, 233, and 
423 grms. of sugar were daily introduced into the circulation. 
In the Carnivora this sugar is formed from the albumenoids of 
the food consumed, the greater part of the carbon ingested being 
utilised in the formation of sugar. The formation of sugar and 
its transformation in the blood rank among the chief functions 
of the mutation of matter. 
Miss Adele Fielde confirms the experimental conclusion of 
Dr. Karl Biilow, that earthworms are able to regenerate portions 
of lost tissue. 
. According to “ Ciel et Terre ” the mean weight of dew depo- 
sited nightly is 130 grms. per square metre. 
If the water-supply of towns is to be kept wholesome it should 
be guarded from the access of dogs, as their excreta are the 
great means of diffusing hydatid disease. 
M. Dieulefait, in a communication to the Academy of Sciences, 
showed that the ash of plants still surviving from the Carboni- 
ferous Epoch, especially the Equisetaceac, growing on the most 
different soils, contain proportions of sulphuric acid greatly in 
excess of the quantity found in the ash of plants of the present 
epoch. This accounts for the presence of large quantities of 
sulphur and calcium sulphate in all coals. 
Professor Carnelley is applying the periodic law in mine- 
ralogy. 
Mr. H. Carvill Lewis (Philadelphia Academy of Natural 
Sciences) has observed an interesting case of phosphorescent 
snow. A mountain covered with this snow shone by night as if 
illuminated by the moon. 
The “ Popular Science Monthly,” discussing the physical 
training of girls, pronounces the piano the “ domestic vampire.” 
A Spiritualist writer declares his convicftion that even the tape- 
worm has some important duty to execute. 
It is said that 16 per cent of our native blue flowers bloom in 
April, 14 of the white, 9 of the red, and of the yellow about the 
same as the red. Some regard this as an inverse spedtral order. 
