Experiments have recently been made at Berlin with a new description of military shell which is charged with rolls of gun-cotton. The projectile is said to be so destructive that no defensive works however solid can withstand it. The German government are so satisfied with the experiments that they have ordered a large number of the shells to be manufactured forthwith.
According to the Revue Scientifique, the discovery or suggestion of the Germ theory of disease cannot be placed to the credit of modern physicists, but is due to a Dr Goiffon, who died at Lyons more than one hundred and fifty years ago. He published a work on the Origin of the Plague in 1721, from which the following is quoted: ‘Minute insects or worms can alone explain these diseases. It is true they are not visible, but it does not therefore follow that they are non-existent. It is only that our microscopes are not at present powerful enough to show them. We can easily imagine the existence of creatures which bear the same proportion to mites that mites bear to elephants. No other hypothesis can explain the facts; neither the malign influence of the stars, nor terrestrial exhalations, nor miasmata, nor atoms, whether biting or burning, acid or bitter, could regain their vitality once they had lost it. If, on the other hand, we admit the existence of minute living creatures, we understand how infection can be conveyed in a latent condition from one place, to break out afresh in another.’
Among the multifarious objects on view at that palace of wonders, the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, are naturally many products of the animal and vegetable kingdoms which are comparatively strange to British experience. Among these may be named certain drugs, gums and resins, oils, dyes, different kinds of timber fibres, leathers, &c. Now, it is evident that many of these things may be useful to our manufacturers if only their properties can be made known. With this view, arrangements have been made for the systematic examination of these foreign products, to see whether they can be applied to present manufactures, or whether they are suitable for new purposes. Visitors to the Exhibition can attend these examinations, which, if necessary, will be followed by conferences.
A thoughtful man, in strolling through the vast network of galleries at the Colonial Exhibition, cannot help feeling that there is some excuse for the national boast that ‘Britannia rules the waves,’ for all the treasures of the earth seem to be gathered together here. The next thought that must occur to every one is the regret that the Exhibition is only a temporary one, and that the riches which have been gathered with such care and trouble from such a wide area must soon be again dispersed. There are indications that this regret, felt as it is by the executive as well as by the casual visitor, may lead to a practical result. For years it has been urged by a few that London ought to possess a Colonial Museum. We have now an unusual opportunity for forming the nucleus of such an establishment, and that opportunity should not be lost.
It seems difficult to believe that in these hard-working and matter-of-fact times, persons should be found who revert to the gross superstitions common to the people in far-off centuries. A so-called astrologer has been for a year at least making a good living by casting nativities in the neighbourhood of Brunswick Square, London; but his operations have been cut short by a fine in the police court.
The controversy which has been going on for some months between Mr J. C. Robinson and Sir James D. Linton as to the alleged fading of water-colour paintings through exposure to light and other influences is now to be brought to public arbitration. Sir James Linton, the President of the Royal Institute of Painters, has arranged to open an exhibition of the works of the most celebrated artists of the last fifty years, so that all may judge whether they have deteriorated. He is a champion for the permanence of this delightful phase of art; while Mr Robinson thinks differently.
The manufacture of whitelead, while representing one of our most important industries, has always had the bad character of being most destructive to the health and lives of the workmen employed in it. The substitution of other materials in the making of white paint has been constantly tried, but all give the palm to whitelead because of its ‘covering’ power. A new process has just been devised by Messrs Lewis and Bartlett for producing whitelead of the finest quality direct from the ore. The process is too long to describe here, but we may briefly state its advantages over the old method. It combines two manufactures, for whitelead and piglead are produced simultaneously. No deleterious fumes escape into the atmosphere, for the smelting furnace employed has no chimney. The operations are conducted with a greatly reduced expenditure of time and labour; while, best of all, the industry is not in any way hurtful to the workers. The process is an American one, and is introduced into this country by Messrs John Hall & Sons of Bristol.
It would seem from the letter of a correspondent to the Standard that frogs and mice are deadly enemies. This gentleman observed a battle-royal going on between these creatures in a shed. The mice pursued the frogs all over the place, for some little time without result, for the frogs managed to elude them. But gradually the mice gained an advantage, capturing and recapturing the frogs, and biting them until they were incapable of further resistance. The mice then finished the business by devouring a portion of the dead frogs.
The last new agricultural implement is a hay-loader, which has been recently patented by Mr Spilman of Dakota. This machine collects the scattered hay from the field, raises it to a suitable height, and finally discharges it upon the hayrack of the wagon. Lovers of the beauties of the country will regret that the pleasant sight afforded by a number of bronzed haymakers loading a wagon, a scene which has so often tempted the artist’s pencil, should be threatened by the introduction of this mechanical thing. But time is money, and there is now little room for sentiment.
From the Report of a Cattle Show recently held at Buenos Ayres we learn that the South Americans are by no means behind Europeans in their use of machinery and implements for agricultural use. Also, that the live-stock there has much benefited by the importation of short-horns from Britain, and from Charolais in France, so far as the cattle are concerned, and that the sheep have equally benefited by acquaintance with our southdowns and with the French merinos. Some few years ago, a loud outcry arose among our agriculturists that buyers from the other side of the Atlantic were purchasing all our best stock at prices far beyond what the British farmer could afford to pay. There is now the hope that we shall be recouped by the importation of mutton and beef of first-rate quality. The freezing process has now been brought to such perfection that, with meat from the English stock, it should afford us the opportunity of getting the best flesh food far cheaper than we can attempt to raise it for ourselves.