The Scientific Farmer states that a factory—the first in this country—for making sugar from corn is now in operation at Davenport, Iowa. The product is known as grape or starch sugar, or glucose, and differs from common or cane sugar in containing more oxygen and hydrogen, and in being less sweet and less crystallizable. It is consumed in large quantities by confectioners, who have hitherto been supplied mainly from France and Germany, where it is manufactured from potatoes.
The low-lying coast country of the African Continent bears an evil reputation for unhealthiness, and this reputation is, no doubt, in part well deserved. But the habits of the European residents and traders are to blame for no small portion of the excessive mortality. There is a great deal of truth and good sense in the observation of a recent traveler, that even in the deadly atmosphere of the western coast the chances of ill health might be materially reduced, if Europeans would make only a judicious use of stimulants, eat good, well-cooked food, avoid undue exposure to the weather, and shun idleness.
Dr. Edward Rae, a veteran arctic explorer, complains that the pemmican prepared for the sled-parties of the British Polar Expedition was salted, and that their stores included salt bacon; while the stock of preserved potatoes was insufficient, and condensed milk, an excellent antiscorbutic, was not even thought of. The experience of this expedition goes to show that alcohol furnishes no protection against the effects of excessive cold, but, on the contrary, increases the liability to frost-bite.
From interesting statistics concerning suicide in London and New York, given in a late number of the Lancet, we learn that self-murder is more frequent in winter than in summer; that, in proportion to population, nearly twice as many kill themselves in New York as in London, the excess being mainly due to the large number of suicides among the Germans; and that drowning, hanging, and cut-throat, are the favorite methods of taking off in London, while poison and the pistol are preferred in New York.
The Fish Commissioners of Pennsylvania state in their report that the Susquehanna River, from its mouth to the head-waters of both the Juniatas, is now full of black bass. The same may be said of both the West and North Branches for considerable distances above their confluences. The Delaware, too, along the entire State border, is equally supplied, while several of its Pennsylvania branches are filling by degrees.
The Commission appointed to inquire into the workings of the English Meteorological Department have recommended an increase of nearly one-third in the annual grant for meteorological purposes, and the appointment of a Meteorological Council, to administer the grant in place of the committee of the Royal Society that has heretofore had it in charge.
The common article beeswax, according to the American Journal of Pharmacy, is frequently much adulterated; paraffine, resin, stearine, Japan wax, or mixtures of two or more of these, being the substances usually employed.
According to the "Seventh Annual Report of the Fish Commissioners of New Jersey," the yield of fish from the waters of the State was last year much below the average of previous years. This was notably the case with shad-fishing in the Delaware. One of the causes given for this decrease is the introduction of black bass into the river, where they have multiplied immensely, and are believed to devour large numbers of the young shad.
Dr. C. W. Siemens, President of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, in his recent inaugural address, strongly urged the necessity for a more extended system of technical education, as the only true basis for national prosperity in the industrial arts. The nations of the Continent of Europe, he declared, were ahead of England in this respect; what little the latter had done having been more a measure of self-defense made necessary by the increasing competition from abroad, rather than the growth of an enlightened public policy, of which the country stands greatly in need.
An interesting discovery of animal remains was recently made in a cave near Santander, in Northern Spain. The discoverers, Messrs. O'Reilly and Sullivan, describe the cavern as an enlarged joint or rock-fissure, into which the entire carcasses, or else the living animals, had been precipitated. Prof A. Leith Adams has identified among these remains numerous portions, including teeth, of Elephas primigenius, which is important as furnishing the first instance of the occurrence of that animal in Spain.
If the mirror of a laryngoscope be moistened with glycerine, the water-vapor in the air expired by the subject under examination will not dim its surface, being dissolved in the glycerine. The Polytechnic Review points out the benefit to be derived from a similar application of glycerine to the lenses of astronomical telescopes, by preventing the formation on them of dew, which often disturbs observations.
