SCIENCE, LITERATURE, &c.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 5997, 5 February 1881, Page 3

SCIENCE, LITERATURE, &c.

With the exception of Mercury, zinc ex pamls most when heated. Cork, if sunk 200 feet in the water, will not rise, on account of the pressure of the water. The second edition of Mr. Barry O'Brien's book on the Irish land question has been issued. A new European lubricant consists of an intimate mixture of tallow, black lead and melted Indiarubber paste. Enormous deposits of mineral phosphates have been found near Ontario, Canada, and are now being diligently worked. Dr. (!. Thonius proposes to utilise the waste waters of starch works for the manufacture of lactic and butyric acid. Late discoveries in England show that fine Bessemer steel may be made from phosphoric iron ore. An important fact. The two volumes of Professor Palmer's translation of the Koran are on the point of appearing from the University Press. The American papers contain flattering reports of Mr. Archibald Forbes. They speak highly, and rather oppressively, ot his personal appearance. The Sultan is said to have conferred the order of the third class of the Medjidie upon Mr. Poison, proprietor of the Fermanagh Mail, Enniskillen, for editorial services to Turkey. Mr. Froude is about to publish his "Personal Reminiscences of the High Church Revival." They are given in the form of letters to a friend, and will first appear in Good Words.

Six cases of antiquities have arrived at the British Museum from the excavations at Babylon. • They consist chiefly of inscribed tablets and small objects. With them is a Phreuician inscription.

Mr. Tennyson is not going to remain in England to see the production of his new classical drama. His health needs rest and care, and he will shortly start for a more even and tranquil climate, that than of England. An interesting discussion recently took place at a meeting of London clock makers on compensation pendulums. The general judgment seemed to be in favour of plain wooden pendulums for all sort 3 of timepieces. According to the Mining and Scientific Press Sonora possesses a vast field of anthr.icate coal —the only anthracite yet discovered on the Pacific Coast. It is said to belong to a very old gelogical formation, probably Silurian or Devonian. Engineers have been surveying a line across Florida for the purpose of a canal, and also with the design of constructing a reservoir on the summit level It is believed water enough can be secured from infiltration caused by rain to supply a canal. s Private sewers should never be made with brick, for uot only is there always certain clanger of leakage, both of fluids and gaseous contents, but they can be eaten into and through by rats, who thus not only carry the sewer soil into the houses, ljut their runs for.m conveniant exists for sewer gas. " Hours with the Bible," a volume of 500 pages, with illustrations, is the title of a recent publication by Messrs. S. W. Partridge and Co., London. It is from the pen of the Kev. Cunningham Geikie, D.D., in which the author deals with " the Scripture in the light of modern discovery and knowledge." The examination of railway employees for colour-blindness is a comparative novelty in Europe and America, but it has been in vogue on the railways of India for more than ten years. And singularly enough in India Europeans are much less subject to this defect than in their own countries, thou.h colourblindness is common ameng the natives. As the papers have been annoncing various sums, from £10,000 to £30,000, as the price paid for "Endymion," it may bo as well to state, says the Athenreum, that Lord Beaconsfield will eventually receive £10,000. It may also bo added, for the benefit of the curious, that the novel was begun some ten years ago. The subscription amounts to 7000 copies. Foreigners have a curious idea as to the way in which respectable journals in England arc conducted. An advertising firm in Hamburg have recently addressed letters to certain English newspaper proprietors, in which, after asking as to the age of the paper, and its circulation, and so on, they modestly request to be furnished with the price of recommendatory articles! A book has just been published in London, entitled " The Progress of the World in Arts, Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures, Instruction, Railways, and Public Wealth since the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century," by Michael G. Mulhall, F.S.S. The following is a quotation from the book : —"There arcclubs, libraries, printing oflices, newspapers, &c, at Dunedin, Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and other towns. Dunedin has 20,000 inhabitants, Auckland 14,000, the latter being the seat of Government." In a paper by Professor Daniel Wilson, of Toronto, lately read before the British Association, there is an effort to mantain that hybridity on a grand scale has resulted on the continent of America from the complex union of different races with the native red races. Exception it taken to the common opinion tliat in the struggle for existence between the civilized European races and the American aborigines, the latter arc doomed to utter extinction, leaving the land to be occupied by the pure decendants of the former. It is 'considered beyond doubt that from an early period there had been intermarriages between the native and foreign races; ami it is wud that the impression begins to prevail in, the United States and Canada that the Indians will not become extinct, but that, through the healthy intermarrying which has been going on to an extent of which unobserj.-iug critics have no conceiption, they are destaneil to exert an enduring influence on the population, t