VARIETIES. 
561 
bauctic0. 
Heveone. — M.  Mathieu  is  announced  as  having  discovered  a  new  sub- 
stance called  Heveone,  and  which  promises  to  become  of  important  use  in 
many  of  the  arts. 
It  is  a  viscous  vegetable  fat  obtained  by  the  action  of  a  high  tempera- 
ture upon  a  pure  kind  of  caoutchouc. 
This  substance  possesses  great  powers  of  adhesion  to  any  surface  to 
which  it  may  be  applied,  and,  as  it  does  not  oxidize  nor  alter  in  the  air,  it 
serves  admirably  to  preserve  iron  or  steel  instruments  and  polished  articles 
from  rust  or  tarnish.  It  retains  this  property  even  when  the  coating  is  so 
thin  as  to  be  almost  imperceptible. 
Applied  to  stopcocks,  pistons,  screw  connections  and  the  like,  it  renders 
them  at  once  beautifully  mobile  and  perfectly  tight ;  it  does  not  dry  or  be- 
come sticky,  nor  does  it  attack  brass  or  other  metal  work,  as  the  general- 
ity of  greases  do. 
Being  quite  impervious  to  water,  heveone  applied  to  articles  made  of  leath- 
er, such  as  boots,  harness,  etc.,  after  a  few  applications,  renders  them 
water-proof  and  supple  ;  it  also  tends  to  preserve  objects  from  decay.  It 
is  considered  the  best  material  to  use  for  rifles,  whether  as  a  constituent  of 
the  greased  wood,  or  to  protect  the  interior  of  the  barrel  from  rust ;  it  is 
found  to  prevent  fouling  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  any  other  kind  of 
grease,  and  renders  the  subsequent  cleaning  a  matter  of  no  difficulty  
Friend's  Review. 
Effects  of  ike  Bite  of  the  Scolopendra  heros  {Centipede}. — Communicated 
by  II.  C.  Wood,  Jr.,  M.  D.,  Prof,  of  Botany  in  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. 
Bear  Doctor : — I  have  recently  received  an  account  from  a  correspon- 
dent in  Texas,  Dr.  G.  Linceicum,  of  the  effects  of  the  bite  of  the  centipede, 
which  seems  to  me  worthy  of  publication,  as  I  have  never  met  with  a 
similar  account  before. 
The  species  is  the  Scolopendra  heros,  Girard,  which  not  unfrequently 
attains  the  length  of  eight  inches,  and  a  breadth  of  nearly  an  inch.  Dr. 
Linceicum  is  too  well  known  to  lovers  of  natural  science  to  necessitate  my 
saying  anything  about  his  reliability;  the  language  is  his  own. 
"  You  wish  me  to  give  you  as  full  an  account  of  the  symptoms  following 
the  bite  of  the  centipede  as  I  can,  and  ask  me  if  I  ever  saw  a  case.  Yes. 
In  the  year  1850  I  was  called  to  a  case  six  miles  off,  and  when  I  arrived 
the  little  girl  was  dead.  She  had  survived  the  bite  five  or  six  hours. 
The  whole  surface  was  dappled  over  with  livid  spots  from  the  size  of  a 
dollar  down  to  a  five  cent  piece,  and  there  was  an  elastic  puffiness,  giving 
the  whole  person  an  enlarged  or  fat  appearance.    She  had  been  dead  but 
36 
