The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-05 00:00:00

Arrival of the Duncan Dunbar from Sydney.

A telegram from Faltn'Outh announces the arrival
of the Duncan Dunbar, Capt. J. B. Swanson, from
Sydney.

This ship had made the fastest passage of the
season. She left Sydney on the 14th February, and
was off the Lizard the 4th inst.; 80 days,
The Duncan Dunbar left Sydney on February
14th, and brings the following passengers :--"Mrs.
Clarke and two children, Mr. and Mrs. G. Thorn-
ton and servant, Mr. and Mrs. W. Tucker and
servant, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Jones, Mr. and Mrs.
Bettington, three children, and servant; Mr. and
Mrs. Slby, 2 children, and servant ; Mr. and Mrs.
Price, Masters Tacker (four), Miss Thornton, Misses
Tucker (three), Miss Christian, Vsi Cobcroft, Miss
Moore, Miss Reycer, Mrs. Worland, Mrs. Blatt,
Mrs. Rayner, Mrs. IV,lnsch, Mrs. Atkins and child,
Messrs. J. G. G..llloway, Christian, G. W. Thorn-
ton, H. Cadell, George Raherta, J. Blackburn,
Major Chisholm, Misses Chisholm (two). Cargo,
3,127 bales 3 packages wool, 391 casks tallow,
2,500 trenaiie, 1,216 packages copper, 4 hogsheads
sweepings, 2 cases tortoiseshell, 14 packages
sundries,

French Academy of Sciences.

At the last sitting M. Robinet read a paper on a plan of
his for purifying the sewers of large cities, and preventing
the pestilential exhalations issuing from them. His plan
consists in establishing a communication between the
sewers and the furnaces of large manufactories burning
coal. By this means a draught would ba produced, carry-
ing all the infected air into the fire, where it would be de.
composed. At Paris the consumption of coal is about 700
millions of kilogrammes per annum; and supposing the
combustion of the tenth part only of this quantity to be
turned to ace:dint for producing the draught in question,
four millions of cubic metres of pure air would be daily
carried through the sewers, being seven times the volumes
of air they can contain. M. Guerin-Meneville produced a
specimen of a fourth kind of silkworm, the Bombyx
Rolel, which he feet's on the leaves of the oak; twenty
cocoons of this species Having been sent to bim by Captain
Hutton from the high table-land of the Himalaya, on the
frontiers of Cashmere, The leaves suited to this species
are those of the Quercus incana, a kind of oak much re-
sembling the cork-tree. This new silkworm cannot fail to be
acclimatised in the centre and north of France, the climate
of which is very similar to that of the Himalaya chain, Its
cocoon is larger than the common one, and its silk is of a
light grey colour. Dr, Paulet of Plancher-les-Mines, in
the Haute- Soane, sent in some statistical re:narks on the
prevalence of wens in that department, from which it ap •
pears that the number of persons afflicted with such ap-
pendages is not by any means affected by the nature of the
portable water of the country. Thus, at Plancher-les- Mines,
where wens are very frequent, and at Belfray, where there
are none, the water has precisely the same chemical composi-
tion, neither containing any traces of iodine. Moreover, the
higher we go up the valley, the fewer are the wens we meet
with, and at the top of the mountain, there are none. But
as the ventilation of valleys is much more imperfect than
that of open ground, Dr. Poulet is inclined to attribute the
frequency of wens in those parts to this cause. Dr,Velpeau
produced a lay-figure, the invention of Dr. Collongues, and
so constructed as to enable students to practise auscultation
upon it, so as to become acquainted with the various noises
of wheezing, murmuring, fremitus, &c., produced in the
chest. These different sounds are produced by a combina-
tion of india-rubber tubes and bellows.