MISCELLANEA. 
337 
genious gentleman advance the horrible theory that all the dead men who have been 
thrown overboard in their shotted hammocks are standing bolt upright and perfectly 
fresh at the bottom of the sea, like an army waiting for the order to march. What 
seemed to us all sand and gravel was to Ehrenberg and other microscopists Forami- 
niferce and Diatomacece —shells of exquisite fineness, showing conclusively by their per¬ 
fection of outline that no currents or agitation of water exist in the place whence 
they come. But it is further contended that these creatures, when alive, could not 
have inhabited these depths because the pressure would have been too great, and then 
one is launched on a sea of conjecture to decide how they were ever brought there, 
and how they floated in myriads of millions—which no words or formulae can express 
—on the surface waters, and sank down to form slabs of organic remains of impene¬ 
trable depth and unknown extent beneath. Not a trace of any mineral substance can 
be found, it is averred, in these illimitable submarine prairies. The cable may then rest 
undisturbed here if these be all there is to fear, for there is no current and no teredo 
to warp its course and eat through the hempen covering of the wire, which suffers much 
in other seas. But as a mite would in all probability never have been seen but for 
the invention of cheese, so it may be that there is some undeveloped creation waiting 
perdu for the first piece of gutta-percha which comes down to arouse his faculty and 
fulfil his function of life—a gutta-percha boring and eating teredo, who has been 
waiting for his meal since the beginning of the world. As to sharks, the Only remark 
that one can make is, that no instance has yet occurred of a cable being injured by a 
fish of any kind. Porpoises, grampuses, black fish, and whales fly from it, so that the 
cable under water is much better off than the wire on land in India and other places, 
where the monkeys are persuaded the poles and lines are erected for their special benefit, 
and elephants use the fences as scratching-posts.— Fortnightly Review. 
Helief in Gancer.—It is stated that Dr. Brandini, of Florence, has discovered a 
real alleviation for the torments caused by this malady. In his account of his discovery, 
he says that one of his patients, aged seventy-one, at the hospital of Santa Maria della 
Scala, being afflicted with cancer on the tongue, in the midst of his torments asked for 
a lemon, the juice of which almost immediately diminished the pain. The patient, on 
finding this, asked for another on the following day, and it gave him still greater relief 
than before. This led Dr. Brandini to try citric acid itself, in a crystallized state. A 
gargle was composed of 4 grains of the acid in 350 grains of common water, and it entirely 
carried off the pain; on its reappearing, the same remedy was repeated with the same 
success. In the course of a month this treatment not only delivered the patient from 
all suffering, but even reduced the swelling of the tongue very considerably. Dr. Bran¬ 
dini had also tried the same remedy in other cases with similar results. 
Aventurine.—M. Pelouze, the eminent Paris chemist, has recently made a com¬ 
munication to the French Academy, in which he discloses his method of making 
aventurine. The secret of the composition of this substance has long been in the hands 
of Neapolitan jewellers. They derived it from a Venetian workman, who is stated to 
have hit on the materials accidentally, whence its name, aventura. M. Pelouze’s aven¬ 
turine consists of 80 parts of oxide of iron, 40 parts of protoxide of copper, and 300 parts 
of powdered glass, submitted to a high temperature for twelve hours and then allowed 
to cool gradually. A better quality of aventurine , and far superior to that originally 
made in Venice, may be prepared by mixing 40 parts of bicarbonate of potash, 50 of 
carbonate of lime, 100 carbonate of soda, and 150 of sand.— Atlienceum. 
Results of the Bxplosion of BZiti o-glycerine.—The new blasting-material is 
a light-yellow oily fluid—a compound of glycerine and nitric acid, its chemical formula 
being C 6 H 5 0 3 (N0 5 ) 3 , which gives 18 parts of oxygen ; and Mr. Nobel claims that as by 
combustion the carbon takes 12 atoms of oxygen, and the hydrogen 5, its complete com¬ 
bustion leaves a surplus of Oj only. He states, moreover, that each 100 parts of ex¬ 
ploded blasting-oil leaves a residue of carbonic acid, 58; water, 20; oxygen, 3^-; and 
nitrogen, 18| = 100 ; and that as the specific weight of the oil is 1-6, one volume pro¬ 
duces nearly 1300 volumes of gas,—that is to say, steam, 554; carbonic acid, 469; 
oxygen, 39; and nitrogen, 236 = 1298 volumes. Weight for weight, the blasting-oil 
bears very favourable comparison with gunpowder, which is calculated to produce ordi¬ 
narily about 250 volumes of cold gas only ; the nitro-glycerine would, consequently, 
appear to be, other things being equal, about five times as effective as gunpowder. But 
Mr. Nobel goes further than this, for he remarks that it is difficult to determine the 
