SCIENCE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6572, 9 December 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

SCIENCE AND ART.

M. Piekke Francois Coqcereact, of Bordeaux, is organising an expedition for the scientific exploration and commercial and industrial development of Futa-.Talon in Senegambia. It is proposed to establish a French colony or factory at Timbo, the capital. English ants do not, as those of warmer climates, lay up food for the winter, but, as Sir John Lubbock remarks, "they do more, for they keep during six mouths the eges which will enable them to procure food during the following summer, a case of prudence unexampled in the animal kingdom." It seems we have not entirely done with the myth of fossiliferous meteorites yet. But an American gentleman has attempted to settle the matter in a characteristic Yankee fashion. He offers a reward of 200ilol. for any meteoric stone found in the United State.-; which contains any verifiable remains of cither fossil animals or plants. This ought to "fetch" the specimens, if there be any. Professor C. V. Riley has deposited in the United States National Museum his extensive private collection of iusects. The collection comprises some 30,000 species and upwards of 150,000 specimens of all orders, aud is contained in some 3000 double folding boxes in large book form and in two cabinets of eighty glass-covered drawers. The specimens are all in admirable condition, and the determined species duly labelled and classified. Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt hopes soon to have ready for publication the work upon Coporation Plate and Insignia of Office upon which he has been engaged for several years past. It will embrace every corporate town in England and Wales, giving detailed notices of maces, swords ot state, seals, chains, badges, arms, armour, plate, kc., belonging to each. It will be illustrated with several hundred plates and wood engraving?, from drawings and photographs taken specially from the objects themselves. Mr. Williams B. C. Fyfe, the well-known London Scottish artist, is dead. Born at Dundee, and brought up at the neighbouring village of Carnoustie in a household of the old Scotch school, he became at the early age of fifteen a student of the Royal Scottish Academy. After three years' study in Edinburgh he proceeded to Paris, where parts of the years lSf>7 and ISSS were passed. His first picture of importance nnp.- uud on the walls of the Edinburgh Acaui 1:1 I S it. the subject being Queen Mary - no: crown at Loch Leven Castle I.: 1 'J-j 1 iie returned to the Continent, and a :u- .-.f busy work was spent in the art galleries of France. Italy, and Belgium. In ISG3 he settled in London. A cuiious experiment is reported from I Grenelle bj the Figaro. Two doctors have conducted, at the expense of a rich Swedish | philanthropist, a series of experiments upon pigs, for the purpose of ascertaining the eflect of alcohol oa the internal organs of drunkards. Fifteen pigs were treated daily upon various descriptions of alcohol, and then killed, after the process of alcoliolisation had gone on for some time. Each pig had a difrerent description of liquor. One had whisky, another braudy, a third absinthe, and so on. When killed, their vital organs were found to be marked with small white spots resembling ulcers. Their flesh was sound, but when sent to market it was seized as unfit for food. A dispute is now going on between the experimenters aud the police as to whether the inspector of the market was not mistaken. The Medical Press and Circular says " A paragraph has b .-en uniug the rounds of the pros-. .«t x i:ij/ tlmt IV :\;!;sor Penfick has been makini; esperi r.tuts nil the common mushroom, aud lias discovered that it is liighiy poisonous, particularly when it is uncooked. It may relieve the minds of some to learn that the professor's experiments were made on the 'Morchella esculeuta,' and not on what is generally known as the common mushroom (Agaricus campestris). The latter we have often eaten uncooked, and in pretty large quantities, and are, therefore, quite u a position to place our experiments by th side of the dictum of our contemporary whicl made the discovery. There Is hope, more over, even for those **,vho have eaten, th ' Morchella esculentu' uncooked, &s th smallest quantity that invariably prove fatal was 2 per cent, of the body veight < the animal experimented on. T;his woul represent in a person 1501b. in weight, 3f of the mushroom in question, a quantity, v need hardly say, not likely to. fce consume by one person at one meal."