The Wahabees, who inhabit the interior and highland portion of Arabia, have pillaged the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, destroying the mosques, sacking the cities, and carrying off numbers of women and children into the desert. It is supposed to be in revenge for the punishment inflicted on them thirty years ago, when they had conquered the same cities.
The Turkish government has introduced the culture of cotton in the vicinity of Damascus, with seed procured from the United States. It is successful.
Scientific Discoveries and Proceedings of Learned Societies.
In London, among the scientific questions of a practical kind much discussed, is that of a patent process for contracting the fibres of calico, and of obtaining on calico thus prepared colors of much brilliancy. It is regarded by chemists as likely to lead to valuable results. In the British Association, it was described as the discovery that a solution of cold but caustic soda acts peculiarly on cotton fibre, immediately causing it to contract; and although the soda can be readily washed out, yet the fibre has undergone a change. Thus, taking a coarse cotton fabric, and acting upon it by the proper solution of caustic soda, this could be made much finer in appearance; and if the finest calico made in England—known as one hundred and eighty picks to the web—be thus acted on, it immediately appears as fine as two hundred and sixty picks. Stockings of open weaving assume a much finer texture by the condensation process; but the effect of the alteration is most strikingly[pg 281] shown by colors: the tint of pink cotton velvet becomes deepened to an intense degree; and printed calicoes, especially with colors hitherto applied with little satisfaction—such as lilac—come out with strength and brilliancy, besides producing fabrics finer than could be possibly woven by hand. The strength, too, is increased by this process; for a string of calico which breaks with a weight of thirteen ounces when not soaked, will bear twenty ounces when half condensed by the caustic soda.
At a recent meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, M. Yvart read an important practical Memoir on the production of Wool, in the Merino race. He teaches that the only means of obtaining fine wool—taking into account the weight of the sheep's body,—is the employment of races of small size. When the skin is very delicate, it secretes less of wool than when it is otherwise;—the fineness of the wool is proportioned to that of the skin. Those countries in which the winter is long or cold, or where the sheep remains in the fold the greater part of the year, and does not lie on ploughed lands, are especially suited to the production of the finest and most elastic wools, those chiefly sought after for manufacture of cloth.
Experiments on the application of electro-magnetism as a motive power, have been made with some striking results in Paris, as well as in this country. M. Dumont, in a paper on the subject submitted to the Female Academy, states, "that if in the production of great power the electro-magnetic force is inferior to that of steam, it becomes equal to it, and perhaps superior in the production of small power, which may be subdivided, varied, and introduced into employments or trades requiring but little capital, and where the absolute value of the mechanical power is less essential than the facility of producing instantaneously and at pleasure the power itself. In this point of view electro-magnetic power comes to complete, not to supersede, that of steam."
In the papers of the celebrated Lalande, recently presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences, by M. Arago, there is a note to the effect that so far back as the 25th of October, 1800, he and Burckhardt were of opinion, from calculations, that there must be a planet beyond Uranus, and they occupied themselves for some time in trying to discover its precise position. This is a very curious fact for astronomers.