In a paper on the industrial applications of electro-chemistry, Mr. Thomas Ewan points out as among those that may yet be developed, that it is possible, by compressing sulphur dioxide and air into separate carbon tubes dipping in sulphuric acid, to cause the two gases to combine to form sulphuric acid, and at the same time furnish an electric current. "The alluring prospect," he says, "of obtaining electric energy as a by-product in a chemical works should be a sufficient incentive to efforts to overcome the numerous difficulties in the way."
A SCHOOL FOR THE STUDY OF LIFE UNDER THE SEA.
(Naples Aquarium.)
By ELEANOR HODGEN PATTERSON.
To go deep down under the sea, in the warm waters of the south, where exist not only the varieties of fish with which we are familiar, but thousands of jewel-like forms of animal life never seen by us, has hitherto been impossible to any but the boldest fishermen and divers. But of late years in the small aquarium at Naples the sea has been brought up, so to speak, upon the earth for us to see these strange creatures as they exist in their homes under the water, as they eat their food, as they love and hate, and prey upon each other.
Small as the collection at first seems to be, there is no zoölogical station in the world to compare with it. Probably there never will be again. Because of its advantageous station on the shores of the Mediterranean, where it is claimed the waters which wash Italy and Sicily yield a greater variety of sea life than even tropical waters, and also its comparative accessibility to all countries, the scholars who come here from all over the world find that they are able to study here as they can nowhere else the strange habits of the tiny animals down at the bottom of the sea.
There is no superfluous room taken up in the Naples aquarium for the fish that may be studied in aquariums elsewhere. Only the rarest, the strangest, the most curious creatures are here to be seen.