SILHOUETTES OP SCIENCE. CHEMISTRY.

Colonist, Issue 6, 10 November 1857, Page 4

SILHOUETTES OP SCIENCE. CHEMISTRY.

It will be scarcely necessary to remark that this science refers exclusively to the contents of a chemist's shop. A rudimentary knowledge of the first principles may be acquired by inspecting any establishment of the kind. If the proprietor is a brick, he will first draw your attention to the mortar, which is an important agent in chemical operations, and also exhibit the pestle, and illustrate its pestilent influences. The well known song called Pestle or Pestal, was written by a chemist's apprentice, who sibsequently destroyed himself by taking half-a-pint of prussic acid on an empty stomach. He was a Pole, but was considered a regular stick in his profession, and would never have risen to an important post. Chemistry proper is divided into several departments or compartments. One compartment contains the toothbrushes, corn-plaister, smelling-bottles, fancy soap, and other matters strictly belonging to the science. Another division is devoted to bottled liquors, such as Rowland's Kalydor, Day and Martin's blacking, and cod-liver oil; while a third may be reserved for pills, and also various powders, such as gunpowder, curry-powder, tooth-powder, etc., which are usually put up in one dozen packets, of different proportions, for adults and infants. One con-r. siderable division is set apart for oil?, and includes salad or table oil, used in polishing tables, and castor-oil for applying to the castors. These are useful oils, and must be distinguished from essential oils, which are obtained by distillation; and if you enquire further, by what means, the answer is a retort. For the hair, oil of olives will *do very well, but oil of vitriol is more effective, and will do for it altogether. m The young chemist must study the laws of chemical affinity, and the nature of simple and compound bodies. A reference to the tables of affinity will convince him that he must not marry his grandmother, though she may be a simple body. The theory of chemical composition may appear somewhat obscure, but a composition candle will throw considerable light upon it. The modern, chemist must not be confounded with the ancient alchemist, who practised the science of transmuting the baser metals into gold and silver. A pewter model of a half-crown was converted into silver, so recently as the nineteenth century, and also some brass farthings into sovereigns, but the professors received so little encouragement, that they were induced to settle in Australia, and there founded the flourishing township of Sydney, where the manufacture of inferior sovereigns is continued to this day. In some obscure country districts, a practice has obtained of operating with iron and steel for the production of gold. An old spade has been known to succeed, and, after burying it in the earth, to turn out gold. The experiment is not difficult to handle, if the spade is properly handled. Your spade should be ground, and if your ground be forable you will have good ground to expect a successful result. The origin of colored bottles in a chemist's window is somewhat doubtful; the most colorable suggestion is that the first chemist's shop was kept by a man of color, and under color of adhering to precedent, his successors have stuck to their colors ever since. The dispensing department of chemistry is conducted in a dispensary, which it is found impossible to dispense with, a fact which is considered a contraditory dispensation. An outline sketch of chemical science might be appropriately concluded with a classification of chemicals, but as many of them, such as Spanish liquorice, Turkey rhubarb, Prussian blue, and French capers might be considered foreign to the subject we should hardly feel at home in their treatment. — Melbourne Punch.

[ : Last winter,, it is said, a, cow floated I down the Mississipi on a piece of ice, and became so cold that she has milked nothing but ice-creams ever since;

A Word about Bankers.-—England if, and has always been, in the hands of her . bankers—the cleverest men in the kingdom .. ■—Francis Child, the banking goldsmith; and there was ♦jingling Georgie,* old Herriott, who founded thehospitalatEdinburgh, and a string of illustrious names. Thomas Coutts died in 1822 (one year after Napoleon), at eighty-seven. At one time he was the banker of George 111. His fortune of 4,500,000 dollars from his wife passed to his grand-daughter Miss Burdett Coutts, the owner of the bank of Coutts and Co., managed through trustees. There wat Strahan, Paul, and Co., established in the seventeenth century, one of the first and most respectable of the old bankers. Their successors, as you are aware, have been transported for fraud and perjury. Jones Lloyd and Co., were once great names, and are still. Mr, Lloyd, the dissenting minister, became the banker, whose offspring became a peer, the present Lord Overstone. This was the firm that introduced the phrase (not the practice) known among bill drawers of 'pork or bacon!"- Barings have done their share in holding high the bankers' reputation. ' Who rules thel>ank* ing world!' asked Lord Byron in Don Juan. 'Jew Rothschild his fellow Christian Baring." When the learned student, Meyer Anselm, died at Frankfort, in 1812, his parting advice to his five sons was to hang together. He knew the power of association. In 1808, Nathan Meyer Rothschild settled in Manchester. From buttons he went so banking. He managed investments so well as to gain the entire patronage of the German princes, and since then tEe house of Rothschild has been the friend of despotic kings. He was really a great man. He not only introduced the payments of dividends on foreign loans into England, but he arranged them to be paid in sterling. He loaned European powers, established rates of exchange on any part of the world, moved bullion and merchandise to suit hit wishes, founded houses on the chief continental cities, sent agents to every commercial port, always received the latest intelligence, and such was his retentive memory ne never carried a note-book! On Tuesdays and Fridays you would always find him at 'Rothschild Pillar* on the Stock Exchange. A broker, by the name of Rose was the only man that was bold enough to occupy the stand of the Money King, and he disputed the right but an hour. He wrote a miserable hand. A Montrose banker once made him wait a week in Scotland, that he might see if his check was cashed in London. On the 28th July, 1836, a carrier pigeon brought to London from Frankfort this simple dispatch— '■He is dead.' The Brothers Rothschild have shown, in their success, the power of association. Their sons will take their place, and, with proper management, they may hold their honours another generation.—Hunt's (New York) Merchants Magazine. ". ■ .■ ■ , What a Publisher must be.—Two friends were lately speaking of a certain publisher, whose kindness of disposition has been frequently abused to his injury, when one remarked, *P. is a noble fellow, and might have been rich; but his heart is so kind that he never can bear to say no to an application to publish.' ' Yes,'replied the other, ' A publisher must be a no-ing man and a "'knowing man, or he will soon find himself an owing man!'— Post. China.—-The Boletim de Governo, of July ] 5, contains comparative tables of shipments of Chinese from the two ports of Hongkong and Macao in 1856; from which we learn that, as slaves to the Havanna, the former has furnished 1203, and the latter 2253, while of free emigrants to Australia, San Francisco, and Singapore, the numbers were 240 from Macao, and 13,137 from Hongkong. The police have had some trouble of late with the trades unions—secret associations that have long existed among the Chinese in the colony, and which are not confined to the artizans, but extend to every species of employment.— Ho?igJcong paper. Spurious Gold.—One day last week Mr. Hubert, gold broker, in the Main-street, purchased a small parcel of gold, some twenty ounces, a portion of which he has since discovered to be adulterated with brass filings. On Moaday morning another gentleman, calling himself a storekeeper, brought seventeen ounces for sale. Mr. Hubert had some suspicion, from the appearance of the gold, that a portion of it was spurious, and speaking to his clerk in German, directed him to go to the Camp for a policeman, and also to ask Mr. Sanders, manager of the London Chartered Bank, to come down, to his office. In the meantime the man sat down, but after a while, some person coming in on business, he said he would call again. Mr. Rubert being alone, was unable to leave tbc office to follow him. He never returned, and the gold still lies there; Mr. Sanders came, and the gold was tried, and a, great portion of it found to be bras 3. The imitation is so good, it is very difficult to detect. The magnet is of no use, but aquafortis instantly proves the metal. The gold and brass filings are quite fine, and to the eye bear every appearance of genuineness.— Mow^f Ararat Advertiser. 11 This [the gift of children] isl»f the number and order of those blessings which in themselves ait but vanities, because that a man in the abundance of children may be miserable. • • * Hath it not fains out to wan? mothers most desirous of children that in the midst of their throbs before and at the time of their chiide-birth they have bene redie to say with Rebecca, Why am Ithutt even sorie that ever they were with childe. And doth it not oft come to pass that their children proove Benoaiea, the sonnes of their sorrow; yea, sometimes the sonnet and daughters of their death. So soon as the children are born there are J»ronght forth many mutual miseries an.l tronblea to the parents; when they are in their infancie how irksome is their cry and bawling; and as children grow in age and stature so doeth the cost and care off parents grow and encrease The helthe, the honestie, the credit*, and good-estate of the children is the continual! meditation of the parents: and if they groove towardly impes, yet is the futnrehope conceived of them very doubtful, and the comfort variable, but the care most certaineand infallible. • * • Parents often hatch such filthy eggs as prove ugly serpent*. • Heethat hath married his daughter (saith a wise) hath performed a waightie worke ;.but I but I say truly (howsoever passion may cross renoon) that hee which hath buried his childe in the twre of God hath performed a waightier work." I—A1 — A lAnwfold Resolution, $c.,T>y J. Denison, 1616.