SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 43, 24 October 1891, Page 508

SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL

NEW PRESERVING METHOD. A gentleman of Chicago has announced the discovery of a compound powerfully effective in preserving animal and vegetable tissues. The preparation is supposed to consist of some form of sulphur, in combination with sassafras, cinnamon, and certain essential oils. The method of use is very simple. All that is necessary is a pint and a half of the compound and a box sufficiently large to contain ten gallons of pure air ; the body is placed in tlie box, which must be air-tight, on supports, so that the gas will circulate freely about it. The compound is then lighted, and the box closed for twenty-four hours. The combustion of the compound produces displacement ; it consumes the vapours from the body, and the displaced gases are replaced by the antiseptic gas. Fruit, legs of mutton, etc., subjected to the process, and thus kept for months, were found to remain perfectly sweet and wholesome. BULL-FIGHTING IN .MEXICO. It has been recently declared by Mr Seton-Karr that in Mexico it is rare to find that any horse has been killed in sight of the spectators. A correspondent writes: —A year ago last February, my brother and I, when in the city of Mexico, were present for about forty-five minutes one afternoon in the principal amphitheatre in the city (that on the left of the Parso, going away from the Almeda). During that time we saw two bulls receive their coups-degraee, having killed between them four horses in full view of the spectators, and a horrid exhibition it was. This is the only bull-fight I have witnessed, but I was told by several habitues that it was nothing unusual. In this case the horses were not blindfolded, although they were furnished with visors, which could be lowered over the eyes. I may add that in the city the usual duration of a bull-fight is two to two and a-half hours, during which six or seven bulls are killed, unless, as occasionally happens, the bulls won’t fight. IS THE DIAMOND A METEORITE? The material in which diamonds are often found embedded resembles that of fallen meteorites, and a black meteoric stone which fell in Russia was actually found to contain a number of small crystal diamonds. The really useful commercial diamond is only found in a zone running through Southern Asia, South Africa, and South America, where the conditions of the surrounding earth often seem to confirm the aerolite theory. In South Africa the majority of the diamonds are found at a good depth below the surface, and the burnt track of the meteorite may frequently be traced in the soft soil. On the other hand, particularly in Brazil, mines are heard of which have become completely exhausted after a short working, pointing to the probable circumstance that the diamond carrying meteors have, in this case, been of comparatively small size, or have fallen upon extremely haul rocks, on which they have at once been dashed to pieces. KAIN BETTING IN INDIA. Io England horse-racing is the favourite object of the gambling propensities of mankind; in India it is ‘ Sutta,’ or what is called rain-betting. Calcutta seems to be quite as much addicted as Bombay to this kind of excitement. On a Saturday night in last July it is stated that a very large sum of money changed hands in the former city among the Marwaris and others who congregate in Burra Bazaar, Cotton Street, and other busy haunts. Bets were made on the question whether the long-looked for rain would fall on Saturday night, and the Marwari who maintained the affirmative won, it is said, by exactly thirty minutes. ‘lt was a close thing ’ (adds this account), and the excitement as midnight approached and a storm was seen to be racing up from the bay is described as having been intense. Another half-hour of the rainless suffocating weather which has never relaxed during the past three weeks, and the speculating public would have ‘ spoiled the Egyptians. ’ ELECTRICITY AND OPTICS. Some one who is anxious to anticipate events has asked —Why not replace the glass of which the object lenses of telescopes is formed, and which is only a medium transmitting light at a different velocity from air, by a properly-con-structed electric field ? It is conceivable that an electric field fifty feet in diameter could be arranged. Just what the nature of this field should be, with our present knowledge, we cannot say, but some day it will be known, and then the secrets of the other planets will be ours. Ether (says a technical paper) is now paramount with experimentalists ; some day it will form the basis of all electrical text books. We seem to be on the verge of discovering something really great in the world of ether. The early experiments of Faraday, the marvellous mathematical researches of Maxwell, and the crowning experiments of Hertz, all show the intimate relations which exist between electricity and light. They have so entirely changed our views of science that it has been truly said that electricity has annexed the whole domain of optics. PAUPERISM IN THE UNITED STATES. Pauperism and the United States are ideas which it is difficult for the mind to associate ; nevertheless the census returns show us that pauperism is there not wholly unknown. Some of the American paupers are supported by contract with private persons, who receive them on their farms or places of residence. < Ithers are maintained in public almshouses, and of this class of poor there are now 73,045, which is less, however, by some 5,000 than the figures in 1880, when the population was little over 50,000,000. <*f this number the negroes and mulattos count for 6,418, the Indians for 36, and the Chinese for 13. It is amusing to note the reluctance in America to call these institutions * almshouses ’ —our term ‘ workhouses ’ is, of course, unknown. In Arizona (says Mr Howard Wines), in California, Colorado, and Nevada they are termed ‘ hospitalsin Ohio, ‘infirmaries;’ in Indiana, ‘asylums;’ and in North Carolina the names of most almshouses were changeci by a recent Act of the Legislature to ‘ homes for the aged and infirm.’