OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 662, 31 October 1884, Page 4

OLLA PODRIDA.

A LARGE DIAMOND. A very extraordinary diamond of no less than 457 carats has, we are informed, been shipped from South Africa and sold by a city firm to a syndicate of diamond merchants. The colour equals, if not excels, that of the finest India diamonds, and in the opinion of competent judges it will cut to a perfect and lustrous brilliant. In drop shape it will weigh as nearly as can be estimated about 220 carats, or in lozenge shape, briolette, about 300 carats. The brilliant will therefore exceed in weight all the historical diamonds. The Koh-i-nor weighs 106 carats, the Regent of France 136 carats, and the Orloff, which was cut for weight, 195 carats. In size, color, purity, and quality it is expected to prove to be the most marvellous stone ever known. THE HEATING OF RAILWAY CARRIAGES. So much illness is directly traceable to chills and colds contracted during railway travelling in this very changeable and trying climate of ours, and so little has as yet been done by our x-ailvvay companies to introduce a better method of heating the carriages, that we are glad to see the matter is attracting some attention at the hands of the Caledonian Railway Company, and some considerable progress has been made in supplying this long-felt want. The idea is to utilise the exhaust steam from the engine, which at present passes into the atmosphere through the funnel, and to carry it into pipes which pass underneath the frame of the carriage, and are then led through the floor of the carriage to coils placed beneath the seat in each compartment.. The connection between the carriages is by means of flexible tubes, such as those used iu the continuous airbrake, and thus the heat is carried throughout the whole train. In the case of a trial recently made with a train leaving Glasgow for one of the adjoining towns, very satisfactory results were obtained ; and we hope that, when means are forthcoming for better regulating the heat, we shall see this system generally adoptod, as it will be a great boon to the travelling public.—British Aledical Journal. INDIAN FISH-EGG FOOD.

The Scientific American, iu acknowledging the receqxt of a specimen of the fish-egg food prepared by the native Indians of British Columbia, says The specimen received consists of a small branch of cedar, the leaves of which are thickly coated with dried fish eggs. Our correspondent says the eggs of the specimen sent are from a small fish that abounds in the waters of Vancouver’s Sound, and are collected by making a mattress of cedar twigs and sinking them in shallow places until the fish have deposited their spawn, when the twigs are raised and the spawn allowed to dry. When wanted for use they are simply soaked and eaten. In this connection we will give the following item from a correspondent of the Chicago°Tribnne, who tells about fish and fishing in Sitka Bay, Alaska:—‘Drop a hook in any of these immense stretches oi inland waters, and especially amid the Alexandrine Archipelago, and in a moment a fish will be at the bait. Rock cod, halibut, weighing from 401bs to ISOlbs, salmon, .fill all the streams and bays ; and the herring ! A fish story here will be apropos. During the spring of ISSI the writer was in Sitka, and was a -witness to one of the most wonderful sights in the bay of Sitka. For more than a week the water of the bay, covering an area of fifteen or twenty square miles, was as white as milk with fish spawn, extending as far as the eye could see. The herrings were so numerous that people were gathering them from the water along the

beach with their hands and filling baskets with them. The Indians placed spruce boughs in the water, and when these were taken out not a particle of the original green but what was covered with a thick coating of eggs. An Indian in a canoe, with a stick about seven feet long, and for a distance of about two feet studded with nails, points outward, plied the water with this crude implement, each dip in the water bringing up from two to seven fish, filling his canoe in somewhat less that forty five minutes.’ ” TODA3The Todas constitute one ot the aboriginal tribes of the Neilgherry Hills of Mysore, and when originally discovered were said to have been clad only in leaves. They are also called Todowas, or Terawwis, the word for herdsmen in the Tamul language. At one time they were held in considerable respect, owing to their being regarded as the first invaders of the Neilgherry, and on this account the other tribes, who now share the hill country with them, used to pay them tribute. They are tall and well proportioned, and are, especially the women, rather good-looking, with robust., though not classical, figures. Their limited dress need not be described. In habits and person they are wofully filthy. All of them have an antipathy to bathing, and as they anoint their bodies with ghee, which soon becomes rancid, the odoriferous nature of the Toda’s person may be imagined. The women are fond of ornaments. In their habits the Todas are very simple. They carry no weapons except a staff and a small axe, from which it may be inferred that they lead peaceable lives, and, indeed, chiefly occupy themselves in feeding cattle. Tobaccosmoking and the use of opium and arrack are getting very common amongst them; and their constitutions have become injured by diseases and vices which have followed in the train of partial civilisation. But of all the customs which prevail amongst the Todas the most remarkable is that of polyandry, which means literally .“ many husbands,” all the brothers of a family ha>^ - , ing one wife in common. We have indicatea the existence of the custom amongst various nations, but it may be said to haveit3 centre amongst the tribes of which we are speaking. The morality of the I’oda women is deplorable. Chastity is almost unknown, and the marriage tie is merely nominal. Any other result from this revolting and demoralising system could scarcely, be expected When the first child is born it is fathered upon the elder brother, the next born on the second, and so on throughout the series. Yet, notwithstanding this, a Toda father is fonder of the children of the family than might be supposed, and the mother. has great affection for her children. Infanticide was at one time very common, but under the English influence it has now become almost extinct. The children used to be smothered in a bowl of buffalo milk. The Todas, owing to the scarcity of women in their own tribe, were at one time in the habit of abducting females of other tribes, and even of Hindoo birth ; but this custom, has been discontinued. Every man must raise up children to the brother. Their government is patriachal; their only occupation is eattle tending, and their language the Tamul. When a native of the Toda tribe dies, the body is gaily decked with ornaments, and wrapped in new clothes, and afterwards exposed on a bier, decorated with green boughs and herbs, for several days. It is then, amid wailings, borne by the relatives to the funeral pile. One of the relatives then cuts off a lock of the deceased’s hair, after which the body, with all its ornaments, is burned amid the wailing of the kinsfolk, who pile on fresh faggots. After the corpse is almost completely consumed, the fire is quenched by water thrown on it. In former times, on the death of a Toda, his entire herd was sacrificed. Men leaped into the pen with their clubs, and the animals were beaten to death at much peisonal risk, for the Toda buffaloes are strong and fierce, even attacking stranger-i iu their walks if they incautiously approach too near to them. The British Government put a stop to this cruel practice of wholesale slaughter ; and at the present time no more than one or two animals are sacrificed at the annual ceremony (for the propitiation of the deity andtliepeace of the souls of the dead). They have many deities, one of the chief of these being the “ bell god ” which is hung round the neck of the best buffalo in their herd, and to it they offer prayers and libations of milk. The “hunting god ” follows next in rank; to him they pray for success in the chase. The sun is also worshipped as a deity. On religious matters they have no very explicit ideas The transmigration of souls they believe iu ; but how the soul transmigrates they cannot exactly say. Perhaps the strangest features of religious life among the Todas are the sacred groves, few of which now exist. In each the presiding genii are a kind of monks, who are attended by kavilals, or “watchmen.” These watchmen tend the sacred herd, which is kept in the grove for the use of the holy men. The bell-bearing buffalo of this herd is not allowed to be milked; ~ the calf consumes its milk only. Some ot these monks, or “ palais,” are married men, to whom even the limited share of married life which falls to the lot of the Toda benedict has become distasteful. After his choice of a monkish life has been made, the candidate thrown off his garments in token of having for ever renounced the world ana all its joys and snares. After this he resorts to a sacred place and undergoes a certain amount of bathing and other such, austerities, in the Toda eyes, until he becomes fitted for taking the place m the religious world to which his assumed piety entitles him. These sacred places aie looked upon with great awe ; no remale l. allcwed to approach them, nor can even a y male member of the tribe hold any converse with the monk or his ‘ watchman u special permission has been first obtained. The Toda women bear as many as fiom foiir to twelve children, and the scarcity ot children is owing to the lull ® limal &bemg inimical to infantile life. the (polyandry and vice notwithstanding the tribe is rather on the increase They number less than Soo. Peoples of the V\ orld. THE YOUNG OF THE LOBSTERThe early life-history of the Lobster is most 1 interesting. The eggs are, upon extrusion,

found attached to the “ swimmarets ’’ of the abdomen (the so-called tail of the lobster), and constitutes what is generally known as the “berry.” A single female lobster will have from 20,000 to 30,000 eggs—as nearly ■as possible the same as the female salmon. Attached to this “ berry ” form the eggs remain for some three or four months, and then the young are hatched. “_No nutritive •or other than a purely mechanical relationship subsists all this time between the parent and its egg-clusters, the passing of its small brush-like claws among them to rid them of extraneously derived and t e occasional fanning motion of its swimmarets to increase the stream of oxygenated water through and among the eggs, representing the sum total of attention they receive. 'The young auimals that issue from th 6 eggs of the lobster are distinct in every way from the adult. If, on the contrary, they were •like their parents, they would at once sink to the bottom of the water in the immediate .neighbourhood of their birthplace, and the area of their distribution would be extremely limited. Nature here, however, as in the •case of the great majority of marine invertebrate animals, has provided her offspring with special facilities for becoming distributee! to long distances, their bodies being so lightly constructed that their specific gravity scarcely exceeds that of the fluid medium they inhabit, while they are additionally provided with long feather-like locomotive organs, with which they swim at or near the surface of the water. As such essentially free-swimming animals, they now spend the entire first month or six weeks of -fcheir existence, in which time, it is scarcely necessary to state, they may be carried by the tides and currents many miles away from their places of birth. During this interval, however, the little lobsters by no means retain their primitive shape ; their delicate skin, the rudiment of the future shell, is constantly getting too tight for them, and is thrown off to give place, to a larger and looser one that differs each time in many structural points from its predecessor. Fisheries of the World.

DOMESTIC ELECTRIC LIGHTING-. A brilliant example of domestic lighting by means of stored electricity was witnessed ■on Friday evening, the 27th ult., at the residence of Sir Daniel Cooper, De V eregardens, Kensington, by some two hundred .gentlemen, who accepted invitations to a •convei’sazione given bv Sir Daniel. The company 7 included a number of the leading ■electricians and scientific men of the day, among them being Sir Frederick Abel, F.R.S., Col. Sir Francis Bolton, Capt. MacEvoy, Dr. Voelcker, Mr Aston, Q.C., Mr W. H. Preeee, F.R.S., Mr Latimer Clark, C.E., Mr Sellon, Mr Dixon Gibbs, Mr E. H. Carbutt, M.P., Mr Crompton, -C.E., Mr W. Ladd, and Mr Illius A. Timniis, C.E. The dining and drawing rooms, the library and the reception and other rooms, as well as the hall and corridors, were lighted by 126 Swan glow lamps, of 20-candle power each, the whole constituting a most charming and effective display. The current was supplied from Faure-Sellon*Volckmar accumulators •of the newest type, sixty small cells of two volts each being placed in the coach house. In the library and one of the reception rooms were placed a variety of electrical apparatus, which was supplied with a current from the same source as the lamps, the quantity required being estimated to be about as much as that consumed by the lamps. Among the interesting objects exhibited was a model tramcar, fitted with small Faure accumulators, and which ran up and down a pair of rails, switching itself backwards and forwards at each end of the line. Then there was a lathe which was driven by a small ■electric motor, and a small fountain in a fernery in the hall, the water from which was pumped up by similar means. But the novelty was an incubator invented by Mr Sellon, which is not only heated by electricity, but the heat is similarly regulated, so that an even temperature is always maintained. There was also shown .Mr Selloirs system of warming and ventilating rooms, in which a continuous current of external air is conducted into the apartments, warmed, and delivered outside, thus materially assisting ventilation. Among, other exhibits were instruments for measuring the electromotive force of, and others for mea suring resistences in, electrical currents. Mr Latimer Clarke’s transit instruments for obtaining Greenwich mean time without ealculation were also shown, together with numerous other interesting objects. The main interest, however, centered in the electric lighting, which was fitted up by the Electrical Power Storage Company, and by means of which it -was demonstrated how a brilliant, cool, and soft light could be supplied for balls and dinner parties without the use of machinery on the premises, and without destroying the purity of the air. The accumulators were charged at the company’s works and sent to Sir Daniel Cooper’s residence the day before, and the lights were running for four and a half hours on the previous evening and for nearly the same time on Friday. They are calculated to be equal to meeting the demands upon them for ten hours. Altogether a most agreeable evening was spent. HAPPINESS AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART AND STOMACH. Dr. B. TV. Richardson is one of those men of genius who flash out scientific truths, as it were, incidentally, as a smith strikes luminous sparks from the iron he is hammering on the anvil. In The Asclepiad, treating of felicity' as a sanitary research, under the head “ Felicity a physiologicalquality,” the author observes: —“The centre of the emotion of felicity is not in the brain.. The centre is in the vital nervous system, in the great ganglia of the sympathetic, lying not in the cerebro spinal cavities, but in the cavities of the body itself, near the stomach and in the heart. We know where the glow which indicates felicity is felt, and our poets have ever described it with perfect truthfulness as in the breast. It comes as a fire kindling there. No living being ever felt happy in the head ; everybody, who has felt felicity has felt it as from within the body. We know, again, -where the. depression of misery is located ; our physicians of all time have defined that, and have named the disease of misery, from its local seat. The man who is miserable is a ‘ hypo-

chondriac ;’ his affection is seated under the lower ribs. No man ever felt misery in the head. Every man who has felt misery knows that it springs from the body, speaks of it as an exhaustion, sinking, there. He is broken-hearted ; he is lailing at the centre of life ; he is bent down because of the central failure, and his own shoulders, too heavy to be borne, feel as if oppressed by an added weight or burthen, under which he bends as though all the cares of the world were upon him to bear him down.” In other words, felicity is a physical result of a brisk and healthily full circulation of blood through the vessels supplying the ganglia of the great sympathetic system of nerves ; and whatever quickens and at the same time frees the flow of blood, in these vessels particularly, engenders the feeling we call happiness. This is the fact, and we. believe it explains the action of many articles of food and medicine and medical appliances. It moreover explains and confirms the truth of the maxim which we have so often recommended for - general adoption : “Be briskly, not languidly, joyous if you would be well.’ This is the converse of the doctrine that happiness is an affair of the heart and stomach. A comfortable, as. contrasted with an austere, mode of life is the most natural, and therefore the healthiest and the best. We sometimes wonder why those who live by rule, and tremble as they live, labouring to eat and drink precisely what is “ good for them,” and nothing else, are so weakly and miserable. The cause of failure is that such persons are over-careful ; life is a burthen to them. They have no “go” in their mode of existence. One-half of the “ dyspeptics ” we see, and whose sufferings we are asked to relieve, would be well ,if they were only happy. Everything in life and nature acts and reacts in a circle. Be happy and your sympathetic ganglia will have the blood coursing through them with the bound of health ; and this quickening of the pulse, if it be produoed by “good cheer,” whether at the table or on the mountain side, will, in its turn, produce happiness. Felicity is the outcome of a physical state, and that state is itself enhanced by the sort of cheerfulness which often consists in being happy in spite of circumstances. Charles Dickens was in his way a philosopher, and he exemplified the truth now expounded by scientists in the limning of that incomparable character Mark Tapley.