OLLA PODRIDA

New Zealand Mail, Issue 691, 29 May 1885, Page 5

OLLA PODRIDA

A NEW AMERICAN LAKE. Labrador is now the scene of explorations which cannot but throw fresh light on that neglected portion of the American continent. A discovery of importance has recently been made by Mr F. H. Bignall, a Canadian explorer, who has returned from the regions north-east of Quebec. Between Quebec and the Labrador coast, Mr Bignall found a great lake between low-lying hanks which appears to be of vast extent, he having navigated it for 120 miles. Rumours of this lake have been in existence amongst the Indiana and hunters of the region, but little was definitely known about it. Mr Bignall considers it to be an expansion of Rupert River, and states that his observations only extend to a portion of its ares. SPEAKING TO YOKOHAMA. As an instance of rapid telegraph, says the Japan Mail, the following item from the records of Yokohama telegraph office is not without interest :—A telegram was handed in at Yokohama at 3.10 p.m., and was received in London at 5.28 a.m. (time of transmission, two hours thirty-seven minutes.) An inquiry arising from the message was given in London at 10.43 a.m., and received in Yokohama at 8.40 p.m. (time of transmission, thirty-seven minutes, deducting nine hours twenty minutes, the difference in time between London and Yokohama). 1 The reply was forwarded from Yokohama at 9.50 p.m., and reached London at 3.21. (time of transmission, two hours fifty-one minutes). Thus the whole transaction—forwarding the telegrams, the receiver in London making further inquiry, the examination at this end before replying, and the delay occasioned by the messages having to wait their turn for transmission—occupied as nearly as possible the time of the sun’s passage between the two places. THE HEREDITYOF LONGEVITY. It 'would be interesting to study more closely, in the case of centenarians and other aged people, the ages of their near relatives and immediate ancestors. It will probably be found not rarely that long-lived persons have not been stronger than those who have been short-lived. They have their “ ofteninfirmities ” like other people. ' It will also frequently be found that their brothers and sisters have been as short-lived, or more so, than others. At the same time an element of heredity may not seldom be traced, or may have to be recognised, for we have not yet sufficient data of dogmatic conclusions. We are able to give to-day some few more particulars of the ages of the immediate family relatives of Sir Moses Montefiore, which we have reason to believe are correct, though in one particular at variance with a statement in a previous number. Thus one parent died at seventy-nine, one at eightythree, his grandfather at eighty-seven, his grandmother at ninety-three, a brother at seventy-five, another - at sixty-nine, a sister at eighty-four, another at seventy-nine, another at eighty-two. These nine ages at death give an average longevity of eighty - one years. The first four- those of the parents and grand-parents of Sir Moses — give an average of eighty-five years.—Lancet. THE INVENTION OF EXPLOSIVES. In a paper recently read before the Shanghai branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Dr. Macgowan affirms the claims of the Chinese to be the' originators of gunpowder and firearms. This claim was examined in a elaborate paper some years ago by the late Mr Mayers, and decided by him in the negative. Dr. Macgowan admits that the gunpowder as now used is a European discovery. Anterior to its granulation by Schwartz it was a crude compound of little use in propelling missiles ; this, says the writer, is the article first used in China. The incendiary materials stated by a Greek historian to have been employed by the Hindus against Alexander’s army, are stated to have been merely the naphthous or petroleum mixtures of the ancient Coreans, and in early times used by the Chinese. The “stink-pots,” so much used by Chinese pirates, is, it appears, a Cambodian invention. Dr. Macgowan states also that as early as the twelfth or thirteen century the Chinese attempted submarine warfare, contriving rude torpedoes for that purpose. In the year 1000 an inventor exhibited to the then Emperor of China “ a fire-gun and a fire-bomb.” He says that while the Chinese discovered the explosive nature of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal in combination, they were laggards in its application, from inability to perfect its manufacture, so, in the use of firearms, failing to prosecute experiment, they are found behind in the matter of scientific gunnery.—Nature. MEDICINE IN INDIA 2,000 YEARS ago: Professor H. Kern, of the University of Leyden, the distinguished author of many works on Oriental subjects, has lately published a History of Buddhism in India. Of this a translation into German has been published at Leipsic, from which we extract

the following concise but complete account of the state of medical science in India about 2,000 years ago, as gathered from the set of Buddhist work called the Mahavagga : “ In sickness the religious orders might take butter, clarified butter, honey, and sugar, but only as medicine. The Lord Buddha also permitted the medicinal use of five fat substances—namely, bear’s grease, fish oil, guinea-pig fat, pork suet, asses’ fat; also of the different roots which take a very important place in the Hindu Pharmacopoeia, such as ginger, turmeric, calamus, and andropogon. The preparation and use of infused herbs or teas, the use of curative leaves, fruits, and resins, of salt powder, eye salve, even of raw flesh and blood, the employment as remedies of snuffs and of pipes for inhaling the smoke : all these things were allowed by Buddha. The medical system even included the following cures : —Salves for rubbing in, three kinds of cupping glasses, many sorts of vapour baths, plunge baths, blood-letting, the use of lancets for cutting out sores, corrosive fluids, gargles, bandages, means for cleaning wounds, corrosive alkalies, purgatives, clysters, &c. This catalogue is sufficient to give one some idea of the state of Indian medicine at the time in which the canonical writings (the Mahavagga) from which the details are taken were composed.’.’ In another passage Dr. Ivern 'mentions that the ancient Hindus smoked various sorts of herbs in pipes and cigars as we do tobacco, 1 and that pipes are described in the most ancient Indian works on the art of medicine. —Medical Press. A NEW KIND OF CRUISER FOR THE BRITISH NAVY. The new belted cruisers, or, as they have been called in Parliament, the new “ Merseys,” for which certain ship-builders have just been invited to tender, differ from their more recent predecessors in having ten feet more beam, being 300 feet by 56 feet, and in having an increase of 1,300 tons in the displacement, making them up to 5,000 tons. The protective deck has been re placed by an armor belt 200 feet long formed of ten-inch steel-faced armor of six-inch of backing. The ends are protected by an under-water belt similar to the Mersey’s. As the ends of the belted cruiser are very fine, the part of the water line not actually protected by armor is proportionately very small. The engiues of these vessels are to be 7,500 horse power, to be obtained by the use of forced draught in a closed stokehole. There are four boilers, double-ended, having a total grate surface of about 500 square feet and working at a pressure of 120 pounds. Their total weight is nob to exceed 720 tons. They are of a similar type to those supplied to the Leander class by Messrs Robert Napier & Sons, having cast steel framing and hollow steel shafting throughout. The armament consists of two eighteenton guns, arranged—one forward, to fire all round the bow to about fifty degrees abaft the beam, and one aft, to fire through a similar sweep round the stern. In addition to these there are twelve four-ton guns and six machine guns. A torpedo armament will also be provided both above and under water. The construction of the hulls does not materially differ from that of the smaller and earlier ironclads of Her Majesty’s navy, such as the Hydra, Nelson, and Conqueror, but they are of steel throughout. These belted cruisers will each be manned by a crew of from 330 to 350 officers and men, for whom very good accommodation is found on the second deck above the water line. All the usual refinements of a cruiser have to be provided in their most modem form. When completed these vessels will be works of modern engineering second to none. As vessels of war they caunot fail to be formidable. Their weak point appears to be their speed, which is not to be more than eighteen knots.—Glasgow Herald.

A NEW USE FOR QUICKSILVER. The San Francisco papers have recently published a letter giving an account of the discovery, by Mr J. A. Baur, of the fact that qnicksilver is a perfect cure and preventive of phylloxera. The idea was suggested by the fact that a little quicksilver, in a case of mounted butterflies or other similar specimens, will prevent their being destroyed by insects. Corrosive sublimate was first tried by Mr Baur, but was not found to answer, as the mercuric chloride was speedily decomposed by the earths of the soils to which it was applied. The quicksilver is used in mixture with finely powdered clay, equal weights of each, and is so finely divided that separate globules of the metals cannot be distinguished under an ordinary microscope. The mixture of quicksilver and clay is added to the soil of the hole in which the vine is planted. Half an ounce of quicksilver to each vine is found to be about the proper quantity, as the result of.many experiments. The clay usedmustbefreefroin grittiness ; the mixture with the quicksilver is done in revolting barrels. Many trials made of this cure, on vines already diseased, are stated to have been very and it is supposed that one application of the quicksilver will protect a vine for twenty years. If further tests and experience confirm the statements now made, the discovery will prove of immense good, not only to vine growers, but to quicksilver miners also. THE EXHAUSTION OF ENGLISH COAL. Lancet. A paper by Mr Sydney Lupton, in a recent number of Nature, furnishes food for thought to every patriotic Englishman, for it shows by reasoning, vdiich, at any rate, deserves the most careful consideration, that our coal supply cannot long preserve our insular supremacy. Nearly a century has passed since the subject was first mooted by John Williams ; but general attention was not aroused until 1881, when Mr Hull, short'y followed by Professor Stanley Jevons, proved that the supply was by no means inexhaustible, the latter inquirer asserting that “ rather more than a century of our present progress would exhaust our mines to the depth of 4,000 feet.,’ below which, it is believed, they would be unworkable, even if any important quantity of coal remained. A Royal Commission was appointed, which, in 1881, reported that 146,480,000,000 tons of coal remained available. This estimate is now

regarded as considerably too high. Moreover, the deepest pit in England is less thaa 3,000 feet deep, and although there is a pit in Belgium, the Lambert, that goes down to 3.490 feet, such a pit could not be worked in England at anything like the present prices. Taking the figures of the Royal Commission, Mr Lupton assumes as the present available supply 144,700 million tons. He takes one million tons as the unit, pointing out that it is equal to cubical block 100 yards each way, or a square mile one foot thick. Deal-

ing with this gigantic unit, Mr Lupton proceeds to calculate from Mr Robert Hunt’s “ Mineral Statistics” and other data, the past, present, and future output of coal. Following his example we will use the million unit, but for the sake of simplicity, will omit fractions. In 1855 we “ won,” that is r excavated, 65 units and exported 3. In 1889 we won 164 and exported 23. The total output for the last thirty years therefore increased oh the average about 3 units per year, while the export during the whole period increased sevenfold. Illustrations are required to convey to the mind any idea of this enormous consumption, and we cannot do better than quote those supplied by Mr Lupton. “It was calculated by Sir Henry Bessemer that the output of coal, 154,000,000 of tons for the single year 1881, would suffice to build fifty-five great pyramids, or to rebuild the great wall of China, and to add » quarter to its length ! In ISS3 the output was 163,800,000 tons, which would form a column a mile square and nearly 164 feet high ; or would build a wall from London to Edinburgh 400 miles long and 45 feet 9 inches high and thick ; or around the world 24,000 miles long and 5 feet 11 inches high and thick ; or if the Straits of Dover are 21 miles across and 600 feet deep, would make an embankment across them 22 yards wide ; while the-total output for the thirty yearn would build around column 9ffeet 4 inches in diameter which would reach 240,000 mileshigh, the distance of the moon.” If the output of coal continues to increase at the rate of 3,000,000 tons annually, the supply will last for 261 years ; but Mr Lupton, who has analysed the figures with care, concludes that practical exhaustion will occur in about 106 years, a period which agrees with that assigned by Professor Stanley Jevons. Space forbids us to follow the writer through his careful study of possible means for the diminution of this prodigal consumption. It is enough to say that the outlook does not seem hopeful. As to the notion of obtaining our future supply from the inexhaustible fields of America, that seems dispelled, as far as large manufacturers go ; by the calculation for our present supply 2,100 steamers; each carrying 6000 tons, and each making thirteen trips a year, would be required, and if the price, free on board, were ten shillings a ton, “we should have annually to pay America £81,900,000, an amount not far below our present national income.” Tho question is one which should be considered by every statesman, for those who talk so loudly about England’s honour and England’s place among nations, cannot be indifferent to*, the great decadence which would necessarily attend the exhaustion of our coal supply. We may, indeed, ask ourselves whether, under existing conditions, the export of coal, at any rate to foreign countries, should ba allowed. LONG NAPS. Every now and then we hear of some wonderful sleepers, who alarms his family, and excites the neighbors, and is interviewed by reporters, by reason of his tremendous “ appetite for sleep.” People always Bay of these naps, that nothing like them was ever heard of before, but the records of the Royal Society prove that one Samuel Chilton, & farmer of Finsbury, near Bath, England, set all these people a very fine example, in the year 1694. At that date he was a fine, welldeveloped man, twenty-six years old. He came in from the field one day, and before eating his dinner lay down for a nap. When the meal was ready his mother vainly endeavored to rouse him. Brothers and neighbors united through the day in trying to bring him to a sense that his work in the fields was being neglected, and that his pofc of beer stood untasted. He slept on and on. for twenty-one days, when he arose and went to his work, as usual, seeming quite well. At the end of May, he yawned violently and went to sleep again. This time a neighboring apothecary was called in, who did his worst on him, according to the barbarous medical practices of that time ; but he did not awake from this second nap until the seventh of August. He then arose, talked and walked about as usual, and believed that his friends were playing a practical joke on him, and was only convinced of the time that had elapsed since he went to sleep by finding that all his neighbors were getting in their harvest. After this, Chilton remained awake during the day and slept at night like other folks, for a year, when he fell asleep and did not awake until the end of January, having had a continuous nap of more than five months duration. During this time the doctors from near and far experimented on him by bleeding, cupping, blistering, and other favorites modes of torture, but all in vain. He slept right on. This was his last abnormal nap. From that time till his death, he slept and woke like other people. He said that “ somehow he’d got good and rested,” and had no dread of a return of the attack, of sleepiness. Suoh a capacity for sleeping seems scarcely desirable, except for cross babies, who might perhaps at times sleep .a month or so with great advantage to their families and the neighbors, if only they waked up feeling as much better for their nap as did Samuel Chilton in the year--1695.