FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
771 
motion gives rise to volume. The more rapid the movement 
the greater the space occupied by the atom, somewhat as the 
orbit of a planet widens with the degree of projectile velocity. 
Matter is thus made to differ only in being lighter or denser 
matter. The specific motion of an atom being inalienable, 
light matter is no longer convertible into heavy matter. In 
short, matter of different density forms different substances— 
different inconvertible substances, as they have been con¬ 
sidered. 
Fecundity of Chinese Sheep. —The correspondent 
of the Chemical News, writing from Paris, says, “Your readers, 
who, like myself, tasted Chinese mutton at one of the late 
banquets of the British Acclimatization Society, will be glad 
to hear the Chinese ram and ewe that were presented to the 
French Acclimatization Society last year are increasing and 
multiplying. Last year the ewe dropped four lambs. She 
suckled three, and the remaining one, to whom she took a 
most unaccountable dislike, for it was one of the prettiest 
lambkins ever seen, had to be brought up by hand. Last 
January she dropped three more, making seven altogether, 
all of whom are thriving. The mother is again in that con¬ 
dition in which Chinese ewes like to be who love their man¬ 
darins, and seems in no way to have suffered from being in a 
state of confinement, or rather, I should say, captivity, for 
fear of being misunderstood when speaking of these very 
prolific creatures. Besides their fecundity, they possess the 
advantage of making most delicious meat, and growing wool 
of great fineness and length of staple.^ 
Vivisection. —The editor of the Quarterly Journal of 
Science , after adverting to the visit made to the Veterinary 
College at Alfort by delegates from the English Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the adhesion of the 
director of that institution, so notorious for its torturing 
practices, being secured; also, that the Emperor promised 
the deputation that he would institute a scientific commission 
on the subject, which promise he has kept, though the result 
appears not to have been unmixed good, goes on to observe— 
“ In anticipation of the struggle about to take place between 
the advocates of the two systems, a regular correspondence 
has been opened between the different academies of Europe, 
and the opinions of scientific men of all countries are eagerly 
collected. The first communication, recently made to the 
institute, was from Professor Lusana, of Pisa, who described 
the processes by which he had succeeded in extracting the 
pneumogastric nerve from dogs and rabbits, after numerous 
attempts. The result of this frightful operation appears to 
