DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 296, 25 May 1875, Page 4

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

The Melbourne Argus of May 4th says : " A brave act was performed by a lad of sixteen, Alfred Hugh M'Cracken, son of Robert M'Cracken, meat preserver, of Yarra ville, on Sunday afternoon. Some children were playing on the lorries used on a quarry tramway near Stony Creek, when one of them, Emma Evans, aged six years, was suddenly thrown into the creek, at a place where the water is five feet deep. Her brother, Richard Evans, aged twelve years, pluckily jumped after her, but was unable to help her, and they both sank three times. Young M'Cracken was a considerable distance from the scene of the occurrence when the alarm was first given; He at once ran to the rescue, ani plunged into the stream. After diving twice the girl caught him by the neck and the boy by the leg, but he succeeded in bringing them both safely to land." The South Australian Register says : " The munificent donations made by two colonists to the Adelaide University, with a view of placing the boon of high-class education within the reach of the youth of the province, are still fresh in public recollection as illustrations in point. Another example of commendable generosity is now afforded in the offer of Mr F, H. Dutton to give the people of Kapunda £3OOO towards securing a hospital and public recreation ground for that town." The London Times of March 17th says : •' Yesterday afternoon, about three o'clock, Rishop Jenner, who had arrived in town from Kent, slipped off a step at the Waterloo road station, and fell to the ground. He was carried to the waiting room, and Mr Robson, a surgeon, who happened to be on the spot, was called to his assistance. It was discovered that the Bishop had sustained a severe injury to the knee-cap joint, and after the leg had been bound up in splints, the right rev gentleman was removed in a carriage to the residence of a friend living at Eccleston square. The Times of India of April sth gives the following account of the punishment inflicted on the Naga Hill tribes for their treacherous massacre of a survey party, nearly eighty of whom were killed:—"All the Naga villages south of the Dillee River engaged in the massacre have now been destroyed, amounted to 1500 houses, inhabited by 10,000 souls. They have lost about forty killed and wounded, and an immense quantity of grain, live stock, and other property. The force is now split up into small parties under native officers, who are hunting the miscreants down. This will be continued for some days. The enemy is utterly demoralised. Although equally well armed, a few sepoys rout hundreds. Our wounded are doing well, and the general health of the forcf is extremely good. The weather at last is fine, and favorable for our operations." The waste land of the province is, says the the Taranaki Uerald, steadily moving off, and not a week elapses without some of the allotments being applied for and cash paid down. At the meeting of the Board on Monday, it was stated by the Commissioner that between two and three thousand pound s had already been received in cash since the 20th February, or at the rate of £IO,OOO a year. Considering that as yet but a comparatively small block of land has been open for selection, half of which has been parted with on deferred payments, and only about a tenth of its value been paid, this is a very satisfactory result. There is every probability when further blocks are put into the market that the revenue derived from this source will be very large. Respecting the Sydney expedition to New Guinea the Sydney News says—" Mr Petterd, a young native of Tasmania, an ardent naturalist, and an indefatigable collector, has been engaged by Mr Macleay to accompany the New Guinea Expedition. Mr Petterd has for many months past busied himself in the cedar scrubs on the Richmond and Tweed rivers, in pursuit of birds and land shells, seeing no human face but that of the man in charge of his pack horses ; he is, therefore, an excellent bushman, as well as a keen collector, and will be a great addition to the party. The naturalists now, besides Messrs Macleay and Onslow, consist of Mr Masters, who for many years travelled on behalf of the Sydney Museum, Mr Brazier, who has made several scientific excursions on board men-of-war and with the eclipse expedition, and Mr Petterd. All three of these gentlemen devoted themselves to scientific research as collectors of objects of natural history, and have labored assiduously for years with little more remuneration than the delight they took in their work, which has been hard, and would be to less ardent people extremely distasteful and uncongenial." A patent has been taken out in Victoria for an improvement in wool presses by Mr William Speedy of Waiau. The Argus says :—The novelty of the invention lies in the method of applying the power. Hitherto screws and racks have been most generally adopted for the purpose, and the pressure has been directed away from the source of power, but in this case neither racks nor screws are used, neither is the pressure directed away from, but directly towards, the source of power. For the racks and screws a windlass barrel is substituted, and placed at or near to the bottom of the press. To this one or more ropes are attached, and passed over or connected to the monkey or presser plate or its attachments, so that by revolving the barrel the ropes will be wound around it, and the monkey or presser-plate pulled down, thus pressing the wool into the lower box, as is well understood. In order to retain the pressure and prevent the backward revolution of the barrel, a pawl is provided to gear into a ratchet, which is made on or attached to such barrel. In order to provide for the increased power required to pull down the presser-plate as it continues its descent, the windlass barrel is made tapering in form, so that the downward movement of the presser-plate lessens with each revolution of the barrel, the ropes being fastened to, and commencing to wind over, the largest part of them. " The curious observations of the naturalist in Nicaragua, in connection with the antsupporting plants and plant-protecting ants of tropical America," writes the Scientific American, " have been described in these columns. In certain acacias and cecropias it will be remembered, Mr Belt found the ants serving as volunteer armies for the defence of the trees against invasion by insect or other enemies, resenting with bites and stings the slightest interference with their charge, while the plant in return provided habitations for the ants, and either special secr< tions and fruits for their sustenance or juices for the support of their domestic cattle; the relation between the two being so close that neither could thrive without the other.

It appears from the investigations of Mr Biitten, of the botanical department of the British Museum, that this remarkable sort of partnership is not so rare as has been supposed. His attention being called to the matter by Mr Belt's observations, Mr Britten has gone over the books and material at his command, and collected the scattered notices of ant-tenanted plants. One of most striking instances is afforded by myrmecodia tuberosa, to the very existence of which it is essential that the tuber should be tenanted by ants. It was discovered by Rumpf, in Amboy, something over a hundred years ago, but he was uncertain whether the whole was a vegetable or whether the tuber was an ant's nest from which the plant sprung. It presents the form of a large, irregular tuber, from which spring a few thick, fleshy leaves crowded together at the summit. Dr Beccari, who has lately collected the plant in Borneo, has watched the development of the tuber throughout all its stages. The seed is surrounded by a viscid pulp, resembling that of the mistletoe, and readily attaches tself to the branches of trees on which it falls. It is probable that birds aid also in its distribution. The seed soon germinates under favorable conditions and unfolds its cotyledons, the stem developes slightly, then stops until a particular species of ant burrows a small lateral cavity at its base. The wound determines a great development of cellular tissue, as the sting of the cynips causes galls on the oak ; and as the stem enlarges into a sort of tuber, the ants excavate galleries in all directions, and establish therein their colony. The marvellous part of the matter is that if the stem is not invaded by the ant, it fails to develope, and the plant dies. The apparently abnormal tuber appears to be essential to the growth and maturity of the plant; and the ants--a small, red, and very fierce variety—aid in protecting the plant by making it unpleasant for anything which happens to disturb their dwelling." Respecting the trial of the Guicowar of Baroda, the Times of India wrote on April sth: —" Rumor is still busy anticipating the result of the labors of the Baroda Commissioners. Of the various accounts which reach us, the one best deserving of attention —as coming from a source more authoritative than the others —is that the Maharajah of Jeypore and Sir Richard Meade have both been so reticent that no one knows their decision except those officials who have actually seen it in writing; that Mr Melvill pronounces an unmistakeable verdict of ' guilty;' but that Sir Richard Couch, the Maharajah Scindiah, and Sir Dinkur Rao, hold that although Mulharoo has certainly not cleared himself from the grave suspicion which is attached to him, yet that the evidence against him is not of a character to sustain a conviction. In legal circles the prevailing opinion appears to be the same, and very high judicial authorities are understood to share it."

" At present," writes the Pall Mall Gazette of March 19th, " we have no trustworthy estimate of the population of the world; all that we know for certain is that we become more elosely packed each year, and that most occupations, the ' learned professions' especially, are overstocked. A paper on the subject was read by Mr Axon at the meeting of the Manchester Statistical Society last week, his chief object being to call attention to the recent researches of Behm and Wagner upon the subject. There have been many estimates of the number of people living on the earth. In 1865 Vosius estimated them at 500,000,000. The German statisticians Behm and Wagner estimate the present population of the world at 1,391,030,000. The greater culture and higher civilisation of Europe have concentrated upon its surface a much larger proportion of population than in other parts of the globe. It is believed that the subjects of the Queen number over 300,000,000. Russia has a population of 82,000,000, far more closely bound together, politically speaking, than the varied and diffused constituents of the British Empire. India is supposed to be the most populous country in the world, its inhabitants probably numbering 300,000,000. Though the population of China is estimated at 400,000,000, an actual census would probably show gross exaggeration. The increase of the population of South America has been checked by internal discord. Paraguay is said to have lost 337,000 inhabitants by civil war. An estimate has been based upon our past progress of the probable population of America and Great Britain in the year 2000. It places the population of the United States in that year at 546,000,000, and of our own islands at 91,000,000. Mr Axon is of opinion that such an eclipse of civilisation as followed the downfall of the Western Empire is impossible. What we have now to fear is not the barbarian at the gate, but, as Professor Newman has well said, ' corroding vice from within.' If we have any real reason for alarm on this point, it must be confessed that, with our usual manliness, we show little outward symptoms of anxiety."

A most terrible affair has occurred at a place near Saintes, in the Charente Tnferieure, where a man named Tarin, after shooting at his father and his brother, set fire to their farm, and burned cattle and brandy to the value of 30,000 fr. He then retired to his house, loopholed the walls, and prepared to stand a siege. He had three guns and quantities of ammunition. Five gendarmes arrived at full gallop, and Tarin killed one and wounded two. The other two gendarmes, aided by the peasantry, surrounded the house, reinforcements were telegraphed for, and before long brigades of gendarmerie arrived from Pons, St Louis, and Saintes, under the command of a captain; the prefect also repaired to the scene of action. For ten hours a force estimated at 1000 strong kept up a fire on the house, Tarin replying incessantly. Corporal Boucherie exposed himself for a moment, and was shot dead. At last a navvy, an old soldier, volunteered to storm the place, and he managed to get on the roof and to pour a bucket of flaming petroleum into the house: while accomplishing this Tarin wounded him slightly in the forehead. The house was soon in a blaze, and the assassin perished in the flames. The two gendarmes who fell were buried on Sunday with great pomp and solemnity, and a subscription has been opened for their widows and children. At a conversation recently held in Edinburgh (says a London paper), Professor Archer drew attention to a new and very important invention, the Chandor light, which really threatens the lucifer trade with extinction. The apparatus is, in outward appearance, a little tube, three or four inches long, having at one end a revolving button which turns a screw, and at the other a minute angular point of metal, which also revolves, passing over a little orifice in the closed head of the tube, A continuous fuse,

formed of a delicate strip of solidified collo* dion, with a ridge of hardened phosphorus on one of its sides, is slipped into the tube, and, once in position, can be moved upwards with the screw. By the same action which, presses the upper end of the fuse against the opening at the top the metal point is turned against the phosphorus, and a small portion of the collodion is thereupon ignited. When the apparatus is fixed to a gas bui ner, only a very transient flash is needed for the purpose of ignition, and not more than a seventieth part of the collodion fuse is in that operation consumed. Where, however, the wick of a lamp has to be lit by the same means, a larger proportion of the fuse, the thirtysecond part, in fact, is burned. The apparatus is either portable or adapted to the uses indicated. If a lamp goes out,, it can be instantly relighted by the turn of & screw, instead of by opening the case, removing the chimney, and striking a lucifer match where, perhaps, large quantities of straw are lying about. The collodion fuse is so little liable to be affected by damp that it will ignite after having been immersed in water, and its action has never been known to fail. Beinec encased in a close-fitting chamber within the tube, it cannot burn beyond the requisite point where its duty is discharged, and the cotton-wick or invisible spirit of gas " starts into light, and makes the lighter start." In the United States, oyster culture employs " thousands and thousands of men, women, and children, all earning a livelihood by the production, tending, and transporting of the fish that never moves." The process is thus described by the Nem York Herald: — •' Oyster are first taken from their natural beds—that is, they are caught at various places, as other fish are caught. But the supply gained in this way would be entirely inadequate to meet the extraordinary demand, were it not that the oystermen have recourse to the plantation. The plaiting is done by selecting several acres of water in favorabld spots near the shore into which the oysters are thrown to spawn, and where, consequently, the crop is raised. The egu of the oyster is something like that of the fish; it spatters out, and rises to the surface, tut soon settles down, catching upon fhe first substance it meets below. The egg will grow upon a block of wood or stone, or almost any hard substance. Oyster men, however, frequently throw into this plantation some thousands of shells, well dried, whitened, and split by the action of the sun; and this method is considered the most favorable to the growth of the oyster. In about two or three weeks the egg has become about the size of a three-cent piece. It ceases to grow in cold weather, and sometimes the water may become too cold for it to live at all. In the spring it grows rapidly. Old and experienced wholesale oyster dealers say that the oyster is fit for the market after three years' growth, and in fact, that the oysters yearly presented for sale are rarely over that age. Others, however, say that the oyster has not reached its full maturity until it is seven years old." An Irish peasant being asked why he permitted his pig to take up his quarters with his family, made answer : " Why not ? Doesn't the place afford every convenience that a pig can require." A Kansas darkie stole a can of nitroglycerine, and, thinking it a can of oysters, tried to break it open. They gathered up about a pint of him.