SCIENCE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3083, 14 May 1881, Page 4

SCIENCE.

An interesting letter from Fiji, giving an account of tho discovery of the medicine known as tonga, has been published in the Lancet. In Lomaloma, one of the windward islands of the Fiji group, Mr Yecccy, a Hungarian gentleman, has resided for many years. His wife is a Tonga woman. For a long tune he was a great sufferer from neuralgia in the head. Mrs Veccey assured him that the Fijians could cure him, but he feared to take any native medicinces, lest he might be poisoned. Finally he consented to try them, and in two years lie took fiftyfive different kinds, made of leaves, roots and bark, but all without much beneficial effect. A fifty-sixth medicine, however, was effectual, and four closes of it cured him completely and permanently. Mr Veccey was not able to procure any of the bark from which it was made, except in combination with several other kinds of bark, all cut up and mixed with one another, se that the plants from which they came could not be ascertained without great difficulty if at all. Some of this mixture, called tonga, at the suggestion of his wife, has been sent to England for chemical examination.

The impression that the coast of Maine has risen noticeably within a generation prevails quite generally among hydrographers and residents of Southern Maine, but there is reason to think it unfounded. In a note on the subject, which we find in the American Journal of Science and Arts, Mr Henry Mitohel, assistant in tho Coast Survey, states that the salt marshes on the coast, which attracted the attention of early explorers by breaking the monotony of the wooded country, were when first seen, as they are now, at ordinary high-water level; and that rocks, long notorious as dangerous to navigation, have not risen since they were discovered. Mr Mitchell therefore doubts tbe correctness of Professor Shaler's estimate that the land in this region is emerging from the sea at the rate of a foot, and perhaps three feet, a century. He says, however, that great changes appear to have occurred further east, particularly in Newfoundland, some of elevation and others of depression.

Among the many statements tending to show the changes effected in London by the increase of smoke and fog, we note the following in a speech by Mr Gr. J. ShawLefevre, tbe First Commissioner of Works : " There can be no doubt that forty or fifty years ago London was famous for its roses ; now it is impossible to get any rose to blossom here, and it is all but impossible to get any of the conifers to blossom in the London atmosphere. It must be admitted that the air of London has been getting worse, and fogs are denser and of longer duration than formerly, even invading the summer months." The substitution of anthracite for bituminous coal, and of electric illumination for gas, are measures warmly commended, but not likely soon to be adopted.

A remarkably skilful imitation of amber

is now being manufactured in large quantities at Vienna. Its chief constituent is ••esin obtained from the decomposition of turpentine. While possessing the electric qualities of real amber, it liquefies at a much lower temperature and offers less resistance to the action of alcohol or ether. To complete the resemblance to true amber, the makers introduce insects and fragments of plants into specimens of the artifical product.

There is some prospoct that tho cultivation of the tea plant may bo introduced into Sicily and Southern Italy. Count d'Amigo has planted tea upon his estate near Messina, and tho first crop proves so good that he intends to continue tho plantation, •md has arranged to place it under tho care if an expert tea-grower from China. The 'icili.iii tea-leaves are pronounced equal to Mie best, Chinese tea.

The phylloxera insect has appeared in 'he Crimea. It is believed that it will not do much damage there, however, boing conined in range to a small district, to which "t was probably brought on vines imported '"rotn France; but fears are ontortainorl that it may find its way thence to tho vinovards of the Caucasus, where it would be likely to do irreparable mischief. A new form of steam boiler, invented by Mons. Bernard, has been tested on a French vessel with such satisfactory results that, the naval authorities in France have dircctod a careful examination of it, with a view to its adoption for war steamers. It, is shaped like a gasometer • receiver, and its chief advantage over other boilers is said to be superior economy in the consumption of fuel.

Notwithstanding the prevalent notion that the peculiar odor which often pervades the air after a thunder shower is duo to the nvesence of ozone liberated by the action of the electric discharge, Schone, the German chemist, declares that there is not in fact the remotest similarity between the odor of ozone and the odor caused by lightening. In a paper upon the- genesis of iron ores, contributed to the School of Mines Quarterly by Professor J. R. Newberry, the author says there is no eruptive iron ore in the Rocky Mountains. He also states that Uie iron ore 3of Sweden are regarded by Otto Torell, direotor of the geological survey of that kingdom, as metamorphic and not eruptive.

A new entrance is to be made to the Mont Cenis tunnel from the French side. The existing entrance is threatened by a gradual sinking of the bottom of the tunnel at that point. Tho new branch •will join the main tunnel about a thousand feet from the present mouth.

A comparison of "Russian petroleum from the Caucasus with American petroleum from the United States has shown that the illuminating power of the former is ten per cent, greater than that of tho oil from the latter country.

The large red spot on the planet Jupiter, which has lately attracted so much attention from astronomers, and which was of a dark cinnamon color when first observed, is gradually growing pale. The cable-laying steamship Kangaroo recently ran from New Zealand to St. Vincent, a distance of ninety-five hundred miles, without stopping her engines once during the voyage.