533 
OUR LIVE STOCK. 
pottissiuiu. These three salts are separated by the usual 
method, and then pass into commerce. Curiously enough, 
they are remarkably free from soda. The v'ool manufac¬ 
turers of Rheims, Elboeuf, and Fourmies, annually wash the 
fleeces of 6,750,000 sheep ; and the amount of potash, reck¬ 
oned as carbonate, which these fleeces would yield, if all sub¬ 
jected to the new process, represents a value of J80,000. But 
MM. Maumene and Rogelet calculate that there are seven 
times as many sheep in France as are included in the above 
estimate; and this will enable us to judge of the enormous 
loss in potassic constituents which the soil of an agricultural 
district has to suffer. The practical and very obvious 
moral supplied by these facts does not yet appear to have 
penetrated the mind of the British farmer.— Farmer’s 
Magazine. 
OUR LIVE STOCK. 
Recently we very briefly sketched the position of our 
domestic cattle in the animal kingdom, and we found that 
they composed a group of the Bovidae, a genus of the order 
Ruminantia. Domestic cattle, although allied to buffaloes, 
bisons, and the yak, must be considered distinct, and as 
having sprung from a distinct ancestry. It has also been 
shown that a truly wild representative of the progenitors of 
our cattle does not exist. The question as to their origin 
has been ably discussed by Mr. Darwin. The first con¬ 
clusion this distinguished naturalist arrives at is that do¬ 
mestic cattle are descended from more than one wild form in 
the same way as has been shown to be the case with our 
dogs and pigs. Naturalists have generally made two main 
divisions of cattle; the humped kinds inhabiting tropical 
countries, called in India zebus, to which the specific name 
of Bos Indicus has been given, and the common non-humped 
cattle generally included under the name of Bos Taurus. The 
humped cattle were domesticated, as is seen on the Egyptian 
monuments, at least as early as 2100 b.c. They differ from 
common cattle in several ostaeological characters, in general 
configuration, in being born with the teeth projecting 
through the gums. They also differ in voice and in habits. 
Mr. Blythe in the Indian Field sums up emphatically, that 
the humped and humpless cattle must be considered as 
