DEODORIZING POWERS OF IRISH PEAT CHARCOAL. (From the Mark-Lane Express, Oct. 8.)

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 409, 16 March 1850, Page 3

DEODORIZING POWERS OF IRISH PEAT CHARCOAL. (From the Mark-Lane Express, Oct. 8.)

A public meeting was held on Monday evening at the Mechanics' Institute, Southampton Buildingi, to test the deodorizing powers of a species of charcoal prepared from Irish peat, and patented by Mr. J. J. Rogers. The room was crowded, and the experiments seemed to excite very general interest. Mr. Shaw, editor of the Mark-Lane Express, opened the proceedings by stating that Mr, Rogers had, some time ■ince, written to him on the subject of liia invention, and that he (Mr. Shaw) had expressed a wish to have its efficacy teited before a public meeting ; Mr. Rogers had consented, and the present meeting was the result. The following gentlemen were selected as chairman and judges — Mr. Young, Sun-court, Corn-hill, chairman ; Dr. Alfred King, Mr. Lyon, Mr. Griffiths, surgeon; Mr. Yarrow, civil engineer; Mr. Nesbitt, accountant; Mr. Nesbitt, analytical chemist; Mr. Walker, Maidstone College ; Mr. Swinburn, barrister; and Mr. Garratt, a commiisioner of paving. The experiments were then proceeded with. A pan of nigbtsoil was put into a hopper along with two pans of the peat charcoal; the mixture was then ground as in an ordinary hand-mill, and delivered into a vesiel, where it underwent the examination of the judges. Specimens were also handed generally round to the meeting, after which the judges delivered their opinion. Dr. King considered the discovery a valuable one. Mr. Lyon, who had been deputed by the authorities of an hospital, to which he was secretary, attended the experiments, aud was perfectly satisfied. Mr. Griffiths, who announced himself as one of the medical inspectors of the Board of Health, had at first got some •light nmmoniacal odour, but that, subsequently, was lost : he considered the experiment satisfactory, and suggested that the charcoal would afford an admirable means of disinfecting cesspools, as avoiding the necessity of stirring them up, a course often attended with very serious mischief. Mr. Yarrow said he was perfectly satisfied with the result. Mr. Nesbitt, who had been deputed by his brother, Dr. Nesbitt, the Superintendent of the Northamptonshiic Lunatic Asylum, was quite convinced that the charcoal was J a complete deodorizer. Mr. Walker said his expec- : tationi had been surpassed. The discovery would be most valuable to farmets, especially to those of the county of Kent, who annually paid large sums for manure, provided that the charcoal could be obtainable at a reasonable cost. Mr. Swinburn considered the preparation a most perfect deodorizer. Mr. Garratt was satisfied as to the principle, but objected to the use of the machine. Mr. Nesbitt said that the deodorizing powers of charcoal had been long known to the chemists ; Mr. Rogers' merit consisted in giving them practical application. He had no hesitation ia saying that, on the whole, the experiments had been highly satisfactory. The judges having all given their opinions, which met with the concurrence of the meeting generally, Mr. Rogers came forward, and stated that the deodo* rizing process of the charcoal having been satisfactorily proved, the next question was, whether a sufficient quantity could be obtained from the bogs of Ireland to deodorize the horrid cesspools of London.— From the experience of five years, during which he had paid unremitting attention to the subject, he could guarantee that a sufficient quantity could be obtained and delivered in London at about £,2 103. the ton, and it was likely that after a time the price would be reduced. There could be no doubt but that the peat charcoal, if laid on the top of a cesspool to the depth, of three inches, would completely disinfect it, as he had himself proved by actual experiment in 1847.— Mr. Rogers, in conclusion, thanked the judges and the meeting, for the fairness nnd candour with which his inrention had been examined and decided upon.

Important Discovery in VENTiLATiOiN.— At a time when cholera, with an appalling voice, calls the most earnest attention to house ventilation, mid dreadful explosions and loss of life in mines demand no less anxious efforts to devise means for the prevention of these calamities, we have much satisfaction in anticipating that human residences may easily be supplied with a continual circulation of wholesome air, and the most dangerous subterraneous works be preserved against accidents from foul currents or fire-damps. Dr. Chowne has enrolled a patent (or Improvements ia Ventilating Rooms and Appartments, of the perfect efficacy of which, we believe, there cannot be a doubt, and on a principle at once most simple and unexpected. Without going into details at present, we may state that the improvements are based upon an action in the syphon which had not previously attracted the notice of any experimenter ; viz., that if fixed with legs of unequal length, the air rushes into the shorter leg, and circulates up, and discharges itself from the longer leg. It is easy to see how rapidly this can be applied to any chamber, in order to purify its atmosphere. Let the orifice of the shorter leg be disposed where it can receive the current, and led into tLe c' imney (in mines, into the shaft)» »o as to convert that chimney or shaft into the longer leg, and you have at once (he circulat on complete. A similar air-syphon can be employed in ships, and the lowest holes, where disease is generated in the close bertha of the crowded seamen, be rendered as fresh as the upper decks.. The curiosity of this discovery is, that air in a syphon reverses the action of water, or other liquid, which enters and descends or movßs down in the longer leg, and rises up in the shorter leg ! This is now a demonstrable fact ; but how is the principle to be accounted for 1 It puzzles our philosophy. That air in the bent tube is not to the surrounding atmosphere as water, or any heavier body, is evident ; and it must be from this relation that the updnft i » the longer leg is caused, and the constant circulation and withdrawal of polluted gasei carried on. But be this as it may, one thing is certain— that a more useful and important discovery has never been, made for the comfort and health of civilized man. We see no end to its application. There is not a sanitary measure suggested to which it may not form a most beneficial adjunct. There is not a hovel, a cellar, a crypt, or a black, close hole anywhere, that it may not cleanse and disinfect. We trust that no time will be lost in bringing it to the public test on a larg icale, and we foresee no impediment to its being immediately aud universally adopted for the public weal. We ought to remark that fires and heating apparatus are not at all necessary ; and that, as the specification expresses it, " this action is not prevented by making the shorter leg hot whilst the longer remains cold, and no artificial heat is necessary to the longer teg of the air* syphon to cause this action to take place, [Extraordinary as this may appear, we have witnessed the experiment made in various ways, with tubes from less than an inch to nearly a foot in diameter, and we can touch for the fact being perfectly demonstrated. Light gas does descend the shorter leg when heated, and ascend the longer leg. where the column of air is much colder and heivier I— Eo. L. G.] — Literary G«~ ze'te.

Dr. Wilde, in bit new book " The Boyne and the Blackwater," says that Guyon, the Hungariau General who refused to lubtnit, is u nativo of Rdtbkeale Co. of Limerick,

AM Indian Canal.— -In his work on the "Agricultural resources of the Punjaub," Lieutenant Smith gives the following particulars regai cling the Grand Ganges Canal, now in progress -.—"The greatest work in this department— the Grand Ganges Canal—projected and superintended by Major Proby Cautley, of the Bengal Artillery, is now in progress of execution, and will be completed in about five years. It will have a disch,ir°"e of 6730 cubic feet per second, and is expected to cost about .£1,250,(100. Its total length, navigable throughout, is 898 miles ; and it will furnish" in igation to a tract of conntry, between the rivers Ganges ond Jumna, having an atea of 5,400,000 acies. Its annual income from sale of water, &c, is estimated at about £1(10,000, and the inciease of landrevenue, which will be derived from the country under its influence, will not be less than £240.000 per annum. The agiicultural produce which will be se. cured from loss in those very districts which were the seat of the great famine in 1837, is valued at upwards of 7J- millions steiling per annum; and a population of nearly G| millions ot souls will be saved fiom a recurrence of thobe appalling scenes of misery which are still fresh in public memory. Under the influence of irrigation the produce of the soil will be increased to an amount valued at .£1,200,000 per annum ; and this result will be obtan.cd at a cost to the cultivators less by '2\ millions sterling annually thnn if the only other method of irrigation piactiied (that by wtlls) Lad been employed. The woiks of the Ganges Canal aie of magnitude unpiecedented in India. The great nqueduct across the Solani river .»loiie will require for its construction nearly 90,000,000 of the large bricks (employed in this countrj. and a million cubic feet of lime— employing ready h,OOO men daily /or fi\e years on the masonry and tarlk-work connected with it. The other works are of proportionate magnitude ; and the whole, when finished, will form a monument worthy of our national character. Thi works are advancing with great energy ; and to he honor be it stated that, tven during the enormous financial pressure of tho late campaign, the GovernorGeneral of India (Lori! Dnlhousie) would admit of no check being given to an undertaking calculated to pro* mote so nietermlly the best interests at once of the Government and the people." "Discovery or Co\l in Egypt.— -The Journal dcs Debats publishes a letter from Grand Cairo, of the dale of the Ist of August, which announces th« discovery, by a French civil engineer, of a hlratum of coal in the vicinity of the Nile, towards Upj er Egypt. The samples have been referred to a commission, and the excavations will be continued on a large scale. There are in the United States 267 lighthouses and 32 floating beacons along the Atlantic coast. The matiimonial difficulties between Mr# Pierre Butler and his wife, Fanny Kemble Butler, aie about to be) arranged by a divorce, mutually agreed upon between the two. Barring the casualties of war and climate, soldiers appear to be a rather long-lived class of msn, there being no less than five hundred claimants for medals for the battle of Maida, fought in 1806.