The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-26 00:00:00

SCIENTIFIC JOTTINGS.

The Journal de Pharniacologie contains a paper
by M. Paul Bert on a peculiar property of phenic
acid, which he thinks may be of some use in
forensic medicine. If a diluted solution of hydro-
chlorate of strychnine be mixed with a few drops of
phenic acid, the liquid assumes the aspect of an
emulsion. It then loses much of its power when
introduced under the skin, but this is only owing
to a greater difficulty of absorption, and not to
a destruction of strychnine by phenic acid; for,
if the latter be taken away by ether, the limpid
solution that remains is quite as poisonous as
before. If the emulsion be carefully filtered,
the filtrate treated with ether will be found to
have lost its poisonous quality, while the re-
sidue remaining on the filter, ou being deprived of
its phenic acid by ether, will yield all the strychnine
employed. The salt of strychnine, therefore, does
not pass through the filter, being suspended in
phenic acid, and may thus be easily extracted even
from animal substances, and this may be useful in
forensic researches. The Indian poison called
woorali or curare may be separated in the same way.
A farmer in the province of Limburg has hit upon
a curious way of deriving profit from horse-flesh.
He keeps some 2,000 fowls, which are the fattest in
the country, owing to the way in which he feeds
them. Every week he buys two or three dead
horses, which he cuts up and boils. The broth
is given to his pigs, that seem to enjoy this
novel soup very well and thrive admirably upon
it. The meat that has been used for the broth is
hashed and given to the fowls, and what remains of
the horses' carcases is sold to the sugar-refiners, who
convert it into lamp-black. The eggs of his fowls
he sends over to England, realising six centitnes a
piece for them, and the fowls go the same way when
they have done laying eggs. M. Humbert de Mo-
lard has contrived a way of getting a number of
successive photographs of the same sitter, so as to
reproduce- them even when moving. The camera
is provided with a certain .number - of- object-
glasses, all corresponding with - diaphragms of
proper dimensions behind. Before the opera-
tion begins all these object-glasses are covered
with a thick curtain which will roll up in-
stantaneously like those of a carriage-window,
by touching a spring, but the motion may be regu-
lated at will. As the curtain rises it presents a
round hole to each object-glass in succession, so
that each receives the image at a different moment.
All these images, each representing a somewhat
different attitude, are successively thrown on the
same sensitized plate, whereby a whole series of
different photographs of the same person is ob-
tained.

BALLOON ASCENTS IN PARIS.—Two balloon as-
cents took place on Sunday afternoon iu Paris. Shortly
before five M. Godard's balloon went up front the Hippo-
drome, and shortly after the Geant of M. Nadar ascended
from the esplanade of the Invalides. The spectacle of both
these aerial machines at once was an unusual one ; but it
was of short duration, for they got speedily above the
clouds, and were borne rapidly away by the breeze in the
direction of Orleans. A few minutes before the ascent of
the Geant the Emperor, in a carriage driven by postilions,
on his way to St. Cloud to visit the Prince Imperial,
passed along by the Cours la Reine, and five minutes later
the Empress followed in a carriage and four, with out-
riders. Their Majesties were loudly cheered. The Geant
balloon came down safely the same evening at eight o'clock
near Longjumeau ; while the other balloon, which had
gone up from the Hippodrome, descended at Clamart.
A YEAR'S CHURCH APPOINTMENTS.—The Irish
Ecclesiastical Commissioners state that in the year ending
with July last appointments were made in Ireland to five
church dignities, 17 prebends, and 84 parochial benefices.
PARIS ExrnßrrlON.—lt is understood to be the
wish of the Imperial Commission that all persons entitled
to be present at the ceremony of the distribution of the
prizes oa the-lst of July should appear in official (Cr other
uniforms.