60 
-J 
MISCELLANEA. 
SUBSTITUTES FOB WATER IN THE DESERTS OE AFRICA. 
Dr. Livingstone, having suffered from the absence of 
water, in common with his attendants and oxen, during his 
travels, observes : 
“ But for its own children the Kalahari Desert is not 
without resources. There are large quantities of grass 
rising in tufts, with bare spaces between, which serves for 
food to some species of antelopes that can subsist for months 
without drinking. In the stomachs of elands, when killed, 
there is sometimes found a considerable quantity of water, 
although it was impossible that the animals while living 
could have had access to any. Other creatures, such as the 
steinbock, the gemsbock, and the porcupine, are enabled to 
subsist by digging up bulbs and tubers containing moisture. 
One of these, named Leroshua , is a real blessing to man as 
well as beast. It appears above the ground in the form of a 
small plant with a stalk not thicker than a crow-quill, but on 
digging down a foot or eighteen inches a tuber is found 
of the size of a child’s head, containing a mass of cellular 
tissue filled with fluid like a young turnip. Another kind 
called MoJcuri , a herbaceous creeper, deposits underground a 
number of tubers as large as a man’s head, at spots in a 
circle of a yard radius around the stem. The natives strike 
the ground on the circumference with stones, and when the 
difference of sound indicates the existence of the water¬ 
bearing tuber beneath, they dig down and find it about a foot 
below the surface. Yet more remarkable is the water 
melon, which, when a little more rain than usual falls, 
covers vast tracts of the country. In 1852 an English 
traveller took advantage of their abundance to go straight 
across the desert from a point a little south of Kolobeng, 
lat. 24 deg., long 26 deg., to Lake Ngami. His oxen 
subsisted on the water melon for no less than twenty-one 
successive days without drinking, and on reaching water at 
the expiration of that time appeared indifferent to it.” 
INOCULATION FOR THE DISTEMPER IN CATTLE. 
Inoculation for the distemper in cattle has been carried 
on on a very large scale in all the south of Russia, according 
to M. Jesseu, Professor at Drossat, and with the greatest 
success. The liquids inoculated are the tears, the nasal 
mucus, and the serum of the blood. 
