MISCELLANY.
Arabian Laughing Plant. --In Palgrave's "Central and Eastern Arabia" some particulars are given in regard to a carious narcotic plant. Its seeds, in which the active principal seems chiefly to reside, when pounded and administered in a small dose, produce effects much like those ascribed to Sir Humphrey Davy's laughing gas; the patient dances, sings, and performs a thousand extravagances, till after an hour of great excitement to himself and amusement to the bystanders, he falls asleep, and on awaking has lost all memory of what he did or said while under the influence of the drug. To put a pinch of this powder into the coffee of some unexpecting individual is not an uncommon joke, nor is it said that it was ever followed by serious consequences, though an over quantity might perhaps be dangerous. The author tried it on two individuals, but in proportions if not absolutely homoeopathic, still sufficiently minute to keep on the safe side, and witnessed its operation, laughable enough but very harmless. The plant that hears these berries hardly attains in Kaseem the height of six inches above the ground, but in Oman were seen bushes of it three or four feet in growth, and wide-spreading. The stems are woody, and of a yellow tinge when barked; the leaf of a dark green color, and pinnated with about twenty leaflets on either side; the stalks smooth and shining; the flowers are yellow, and grow in tufts, the anthers numerous, the fruit is a capsule, stuffed with greenish padding, in which lie imbedded two or three black seeds, in size and shape much like French beans; their taste sweetish, but with a peculiar opiate flavor; the smell heavy and almost sickly.
The Congelation of Animals. --It is generally supposed that certain animals cannot be frozen without the production of fatal results, and that others can tolerate any degree of congelation. Both these views have been shown to be incorrect in a paper read before the French Academy, by M. Pouchet. The writer arrives at the following conclusions: (1.) The first effect produced by the application of cold is contraction of the capillary blood-vessels. This may be observed with the microscope. The vessels become so reduced in calibre that the blood-globules are unable to enter them. (2.) The second effect is the alteration in form and structure of the blood-globules themselves. These alterations are of three kinds: (a) the nucleus bursts from the surrounding envelope; (b) the nucleus undergoes alteration of form; (c) the borders of the globule become crenated, and assume a deeper color than usual. (3.) When an animal is completely frozen, and when, consequently, its blood-globules have become disorganized, it is dead--nothing can then re-animate it. (4.) When the congelation is partial, those organs which have been completely frozen become gangrenous and are destroyed. (5.) If the partial congelation takes place to a very slight extent, there are not many altered globules sent into the general circulation; and hence life is not compromised. (6.) If, on the contrary, it is extensive, the quantity of altered globules is so great that the animal perishes. (7.) On this account an animal which is partially frozen may live a long time if the congelation is maintained, the altered globules not entering into the general circulation; but, on the contrary, it dies if heat be suddenly applied, owing to the blood becoming charged with altered globules. (8.) In all cases of fatal congelation the animal dies from decomposition or alteration of the blood-globules, and not from stupefaction of the nervous system.
Ordnance and Targets. --The Admiralty having erected a new target, representing a portion of the side of the Hercules, experiments were made at Shoeburyness which proved that a thickness of armor casing had been attained which afforded perfect security against even the largest guns recently constructed. The target has a facing of [{138}] 9-inch armor-plates, and contains altogether eleven inches thickness of iron. Against this three 12-ton shunt guns were fired, at a distance of only 200 yards, with charges varying from 45 lbs. to 60 lbs. of powder. One steel shot, of 300 lbs. weight, 10-1/2 inches in diameter, fired with 60 lbs. of powder, at a velocity of 1,450 feet per second, barely broke through the armor, without injuring the backing. Sir William Armstrong has expressed his conviction, in the Times, that the 600-pounder gun will be unable to penetrate this target, and that it will, in fact, require a gun carrying 120 lbs. of powder and steel shot to pierce this massive shield. Mr. W. C. Unwin has pointed out, in a letter to the Engineer, that for similar guns with shot of similar form, and charges in a constant ratio to the weight of the shot, the velocity is nearly constant. Then, assuming the resistance of the plates to be as the squares of their thicknesses, it follows that when the diameter of the shot increases, as well as the thickness of the armor, the maximum thickness perforated will (by theory) vary as the cube root of the weight of the shot, or, in other words, as the calibre of the gun; and the weight of the shot necessary to penetrate different thicknesses of armor will be as the cubes of those thicknesses. The ratio deduced from the Shoeburyness experiments is somewhat less than this, being as the 2.5 power and the 5.2 power respectively. Practical formula deduced from experiments are given, which agree with Sir William Armstrong's conclusion, and prove that a gun which can effectively burn a charge of at least 100 lbs. of powder will be required to effectually penetrate the side of the Hercules.
The Moa's Egg. --Since our last issue a splendid specimen of the egg of the Dinornis has been exhibited in this country, put up to auction, and "bought in" by the proprietors for £125. Some interesting details concerning the history of gigantic birds' eggs have been supplied by a contemporary, and we quote them for our readers: In 1854, M. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire exhibited to the French Academy some eggs of the Epyornis, a bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. The larger of these was 12.1 inches long, and 11.8 inches wide; the smaller one was slightly less than this. The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris also contains two eggs, both of which are larger than the one recently put up for sale, the longer axis of which measures 10 inches, and the shorter 7 inches. In the discussion which followed the reading of M. de St. Hilaire's paper, M. Valenciennes stated it was quite impossible to judge of the size of a bird by the size of its egg, and gave several instances in point. Mr. Strickland, in some "Notices of the Dodo and its Kindred," published in the "Annals of Natural History" for November, 1849, says that in the previous year a Mr. Dumarele, a highly respectable French merchant at Bourbon, saw at Port Leven, Madagascar, an enormous egg, which held "thirteen wine quart bottles of fluid. " The natives stated that the egg was found in the jungle, and "observed that such eggs were very, very rarely met with." Mr. Strickland appears to doubt this, but there seems no reason to do so. Allowing a pint and a half to each of the so-called "quarts," the egg would hold 19-1/2 pints. Now, the larger egg exhibited by St. Hilaire held 17-1/2 pints, as he himself proved. The difference is not so very great. A word or two about the nests of such gigantic birds. Captain Cook found, on an island near the north-east coast of New Holland, a nest "of a most enormous size. It was built with sticks upon the ground, and was no less than six-and-twenty feet in circumference, and two feet eight inches high." (Kerr's "Collection of Voyages and Travels," xiii. 318.) Captain Flinders found two similar nests on the south coasts of New Holland, in King George's Bay. In his "Voyage, etc.," London, 1818, he says: "They were built upon the ground, from which they rose above two feet, and were of vast circumference and great interior capacity; the branches of trees and other matter of which each nest was composed being enough to fill a cart."--The Reader.
The Birds of Siberia. --In an important treatise, published under the patronage of the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, and which is the second of a series intended to be issued on Siberian zoology, the author, Herr Radde, not only records the species, but gives an account of the period of the migration of Siberian birds. He [{139}] gives a list of 368 species, which he refers to the following orders: Rapaces, 36; Scansores, 19; Oscines, 140; Gallinaceae, 18; Grallatores, 74; and Natatores, 81. Concerning the migration of birds, Herr Radde confirms the result arrived at by Von Middendorf in his learned memoir, "Die Isepiptesen Russlands;" the most important of them being, (1) that the high table-land of Asia and the bordering ranges of the Altai, Sajan, and Dauria retard the arrival of the migratory birds; (2) eastward of the upper Lena, toward the east coast of Siberia, a considerable retardation of migrants is again noticeable; and (8) the times of arrival at the northern edge of the Mongolian high steppes are altogether earlier than those of the same species on the Amoor.
Plants within Plants. --In one of the recent numbers of the "Comptes Rendus," N. Trécul gives an account of some curious observations, showing that plants sometimes are formed within the cells of existing ones. He considers that the organic matter of certain vegetable cells can, when undergoing putrefaction, transform itself into new species, which differ entirely from the species in which they are produced. In the bark of the elder, and in plants of the potato and stone-crop order, he found vesicles full of small tetrahedral bodies containing starchy matter, and he has seen them gradually transformed into minute plants by the elongation of one of their angles.
The Extract of Meat. --Baron Liebig, who has favored us with some admirable samples of this excellent preparation, has also forwarded to us a letter in which he very clearly explains what is the exact nutritive value of the extractum carnis: "The meat," says the baron, "as it comes from the butcher, contains two different series of compounds. The first consists of the so-called albuminous principles (albumen, fibrin) and of glue-forming membrane. Of these, fibrin and albumen have a high nutritive power, although not if taken by themselves. The second series consists of crystallizable substances, viz., creatin, creatinin, sarcin, which are exclusively to be found in meat; further, of non-crystallizable organic principles and salts (phosphate and chloride of potassium), which are not to be found elsewhere. All of these together are called the extractives of meat. To the second series of substances beef-tea owes its flavor and efficacy, the same being the case with the extractum carnis, which is, in fact, nothing but solid beef-tea--that is, beef-tea from which the water has been evaporated. Beside the substances already mentioned, meat contains, as a non-essential constituent, a varying amount of fat. Now neither fibrin nor albumen is to be found in the extractum carnis which bears my name, and gelatine (glue) and fat are purposely excluded from it. In the preparation of the extract the albuminous principles are left in the residue. This residue, by the separation of all soluble principles, which are taken up in the extract, loses its nutritive power, and cannot be made an article of trade in any palatable form. Were it possible to furnish the market at a reasonable price with a preparation of meat containing both the albuminous and extractive principles, such a preparation would have to be preferred to the extractum carnis, for it would contain all the nutritive constituents of the meat. But there is, I think, no prospect of this being realized." These remarks show very clearly the actual value of the extract. It is, in fact, concentrated beef-tea; but it is neither the equivalent of flesh on the one hand, nor an imperfectly nutritive substance on the other. It is, nevertheless, a most valuable preparation, and now commands an extensive sale in these countries and abroad; and it is, furthermore, the only valuable form in which the carcases of South American cattle (heretofore thrown away as valueless) can be utilized.--Popular Science Review.