762 
THE TROPICAL AQRIOULTURI8T. 
[April i, 1892. 
be rednced to two primary forms. Iodine has boon 
heated until it assumed the atomic condition. Among 
the rarer and heavier metals is gold, and Professor 
Austen thinks that if it were subjected to the 
same treatment as didyminm and yttrium, it would be 
resolved into something olse, could be recombined into 
the gold state, and thus toaeli us liow to make gold. 
Rlost Englishmen, and men of English descent, 
love their peer. I never yet mot either a brewer 
or a publican who did not sell good, sound beer. 
Nevertheless, the trade organs are crowded witli 
advertisements of various drugs and chemicals all 
intended, of course, to make “good, sound beer ’’ 
better. A groat "trade ’’ authority, the other day, 
when under examination, ingonionsly deflned beer 
to bo “ a fermented, saccharine, fluid, flavoured by 
some bittering principle." The popular notion that 
beer is always made from malt and hops shows what 
a many-headed old fool the public is, and how 
simplo-ininded is its trustfulness. Most of the beer 
solo knows nothing of nislt and hops. It knowjs more 
of sugar and luolasses, and cjuassia, coccnlns indicus 
&c. These “ bittering principles " go by the eupho- 
nious no<ii)€B of “hop siibstitutos, and, of coiiiBe, 
are many times cheaper than hops. When the new 
Beer Bill comes into operation in England, obliging 
brewers to state on the outside of the cask what the 
liquid within has been concocted from, I expect 
there will ho some fun. 
I have, on several occasions, called the attention 
of my readers to the exceedingly ingenious experi- 
ments and discoveries of Professor Boys, ono of tho 
youngest of our eminent scientists. Some time ago 
he exhibited at tho Royal Institutions, and also be- 
fore the Royal Society, the results of his experi- 
ments with his artifioal fibres of quartz. At the re- 
cent British Association meeting Professor Boys 
delivered a discourse on tho subject. How fine those 
artifical quartz threads can bo made was illustrated 
by moans of tho oxyhydrogen lantern and screen. 
A living spider was shown riming over the lines of 
its own well. The spider was then transferred to a 
web made of the artifical quartz fibre, hut the latter 
was so much more delicate and smooth that tlie 
spider could be seen slipping about like a bad 
skater on minsually smooth ice. How sensitive those 
quartz threads can bo mode was shown from tlio 
fact that the heat from a candio at the extreme 
end of the hall was snfftcent to turn a mirror sus- 
pended by ono of tho fibres. Even a musical note 
had the same effect. Professor Boys demonstrated 
that tho attraction of gravity of the twenty-five 
millionth part of a grain, acting on a torsion-balance 
made of quartz fibre, can be rendered visible. 
A curious fact has just been brought before the 
notice of the Paris Academy of Sciences, by M. 
Bonnier, that the amount of carbonic acid decomposed 
by plants increases with the altitude. Ono would 
have thought the opposite to have been the case, 
seeing that the lower strata of tho atmosphere are 
more charged with that gas than the upper. Facts, 
however, are proverbially stubborn things, fli. Bonnier 
shows that plants cultivated in an Alpine climate 
undergo a modification of their functions such that 
the assimilation and transpiration due to tho green 
colouring matter (chlorophyll) are augmontod, whilst 
respiration and transpiration in the dark are little 
modified or slightly diminishod. 
With regard to tho chloronhyllinn assimilation by 
plants with red leaves, another hrench scientist, M. 
Juniolle (who has been specially investigating the 
Bubjeot), proves that in trees with red or coppery- 
coloured leaves the chlorophyllian assimilation is 
always more feeble than in trees of the kind which 
bear green loaves. The intensity in tho copper 
beech and the purple sycamore is only about one- 
sixth that of the ordinary typos of the same trees. 
Coloured leaves, therefore, are in all cases evidence 
of decreased or decreasing vitality. 
The foUowing is a capital receipt just given in the 
Journal of the Rmial Microscopical Society, by I ro- 
fesBor Goodall, for the disintegration of woody tissues, 
which may bo of practical itnportanco to some of 
roadocB. The tiasQO is soaked foi* ft sumcieut 
iiuQ iu ft (ou pea; con(« solution 
bichromate of potassium, then quickly freed from 
the excess of the salt by once rinsing in pure water, 
and inim#liately acted upon by concentrated 
sulphuric acid. After the acid has acted for a short 
time, tho tissue must be placed in a larger quantity 
of pure water, and immediately it will be found to 
have undergoite moi’o or loss complete disintegra- 
tion, each structural elemeut being soparatod from 
its noighbourff, with little or no corrosion of the wall. 
We have hoard, at various times within the last 
few years, a good deal about the wonderful action 
of tho new drug cocaine. Now, I have just heard 
from an Indian surgeon, Dr. Pant, that he injects 
cocaine hydrochlorato (half to one grain in ten to 
fifteen drops of water) hypodermically, as a cure 
for the stings of scorpions. Ho has been injecting 
it at or near the seat of the sting, with the result 
that the pain is gone before the nozzle of the syringe 
is withdrawn. A fresh solution acts better than one 
long kept. Hr. Pant has used it in nearly one 
hundred cases, without the slightest untoward symp- 
toms. Ho says that during May, June, and July 
scorpions abound in Brinogar, in Garhwal, India, 
particularly after a stormy or rainy evening. A village 
a few miles distant from Srinagar was denortod, 
owing to the sco^ions in it. Of course, all the rest 
of India is not like Srinagar in this respect. I do 
not see why tho remedy alx)ve mentioned should not 
be applied to tho bites of venomous snakes.* 
A very practical paper was read at the recent 
meeting of the liritish Association at Leeds, by Mr. 
Thoniaon, of Manchester, on vulcanised indiorubber. 
Ho showed that copper salts have a very injurious 
effect oti this well-known substance, and, as copper 
is not imfrequontly used in dyeing blacks and other 
coloius, tlie indianihher cloth bo dyed ai*o liable to 
decompose, and tlio rubber to harden on their sur- 
faces, or in their tisHuea. Mr. Tliomson slated that 
metallic copper placed in contact with thin sheets 
of iiidia-rubbbor brings about oxidation and hardening 
of its substance, although no appreciable quantity of 
copper enters the indiarubber. Metallic zinc ^d 
silver have no appr©cial)]o effect on tho rubber. 
Wlien oils contain tlio sligliteat amount of^ copper, 
which they often do, and ordinary cloths are oiled 
with them, or if tho oilscunio into contact with them or 
tho action of the bleaching agent on tho copper damages 
the cloth. Linrteed oil contaiuB an acid winch damages 
clotli. The well known smell of indiarubber is a sign 
that it is decomposing. Indiarubber can best bo pre- 
served in water, glycerine, or coal gas. AU oils, except 
castor oil have a very injurious effect on indiarubber. 
A French scientific agricultural journal has been 
discussing the inmurtant question as to whether hay, 
and then water, ana afterwards oats, ought to bo given 
to horses; or whether tho hay and oats should bo 
given thorn before tho water? The first plan is 
recommended, on the ground that drinks ought to bo 
given after a meal of dry and fibrous foods, as they 
aid digestion. Water, however, should not bo given 
after grains, possessing a floury substance, whether 
the latter bo bruisou, broken, or softened. All, 
animals should take water before they receive grain, 
and if fed on cooked foods, they ought to drink frequently 
but very little — tipple, in short. — Austrahmian. 
NOTES FliOM PEERMAAD. 
February, 1892. 
It is with much pntisfactioo that I note the im* 
proved averages for Travancoro tea generally, aud 
espeoially for Poermaad. Your correspondent, Bt. 
Louis, sumo timo back, drew attention to tho low 
pricoi then prevailing, and attributed them to the 
desire on tho part of tho plautor for quantity not 
quality, iu fact to coarse plucking. lo this Burmiae, 
however, ho was incorrect. At the time, there wan 
a general depression in tho market and the teas re. 
ruferred to were monscou growths, which soldom, if 
ever, equal tho produce of the drier months of the 
• And lo those of centipedes, which are worse thau 
scorpion bites,— En. T, A, 
