397 
Facts and Observations. 
FURTHER PACTS AND PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO PLEURO¬ 
PNEUMONIA IN AUSTRALIA. 
The Melbourne Argus states that after a few weeks had elapsed 
without any fresh cases of pleuro-pneumonia having been 
reported, many stockowners were beginning to think that 
the disease was extirpated, but it has now broken out in a 
fresh quarter, the Ovens district, and in a manner to show 
that the contagion must be widely spread. Full particulars 
have not yet reached town, but the officers of police at three 
different places made reports of the appearance of the disease 
almost simultaneously, and with truth, in regard to two at 
least of three localities. It was first noticed in working- 
bullocks belonging to a carrier’s team, which had some 
months ago been running for a short time with cattle that 
have since been destroyed ; and in another herd, not many 
miles away, and very much infected, two bullocks so ill as to 
be unable to travel were left by a carrier passing along the 
road. Thus, the danger from this source turns out unfortu¬ 
nately not to have been exaggerated, and any moment may 
bring us similar reports from other districts hundreds of 
miles apart. The bill authorising strict measures for the pre¬ 
vention of this disease has passed the Assembly, and will 
most probably be law in a few days, and not before it is 
required, for the utmost exertions will have to be used this 
winter to rid us of this destructive malady, if, indeed, it is to 
be banished from the country at all. 
ELECTROLYTIC TEST POR ARSENIC. 
At a meeting of the Chemical Society, Professor Bloxam 
read a paper on this test for arsenic. In a former com¬ 
munication on the subject he had shown that when arsenical 
compounds mixed with diluted sulphuric acid were acted 
upon by the current produced from four or five cells, 
arseniuretted hydrogen gas was liberated from the negative 
pole; but that arsenic acid did not respond to this test, and 
that the presence of mercury interfered with it. The author 
now obviated the difficulties by adding a small quantity of 
sulphuretted hydrogen water to the liquid during its electro¬ 
lysis. By this means a ring of tersulphide of arsenic, followed 
