The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-26 00:00:00

SCIENTIFIC JOTTINGS.

M. de Thorn has addresoed a curious communication to
the Academy of Sciences on the subject of certain singing
fish that inhabit the seas as well as rivers of South Ame-
rica. Tie specially mentions the Bay of Pailon, situated
north of the province of Esmeraldas, in the Republic of
Ecuador, where, being in a boat, ho was suddenly startled
by a deep humming noise, which he at first attributed to
some large insect, but which upon inquiry turned out to be
a kind of fish called Musicos by the people of the country.
On proceeding further, the sounds became so strong as to
remind him of the strains of a church organ. These fish
live both in salt and in fresh water, since they are also met
with in the river Mataje. They are not more than ten
inches long ; their colour is white sprinkled with blue spots,
and they will continue their music for hours without mind-
ing any interruption.
M. Lemaire advocates coal tar as a preservative against
the potato blight. He incorporates two parts of coal tar
with 100 parts of dry and loose earth, and strews this mix.
ture over the ground to be planted with potatoes, after
which the field is ploughed or dug in the usual way. In
this manner the coal tar is buried to the depth of 20 centi-
metres or thereabouts, and the potatoes planted in it
thrive perfectly, and are never attacked with the blight 4
M. Lemaire has also made the discovery that potatoes
planted in a part of the same field, which had been pur..
posely left without coal tar, contracted the disease, at the.
same time that the others were.

M. Radozkowski announces the discovery of a new mine-
ral, which he calls Wagite, in the Ural mountains. It
presents the appearance of a concretion of crusts, the sur-
face of which bristles with small asperities which, seen
through a magnifying glass, have the appearance of bril-
liant crystals, resembling zeolite. Their colour is a light
blue, with a tendency to green. The specific gravity of this
mineral is 2.7, its hardness 5 ; it is soluble in sari without
effervescence, yields water by calcination, is unfusible under
the blow pipe, becoming opaque by the action of the flame;
with boran it yields a colourless glass.

PURE WATER IN THE OLDEN TIME.—The im-
portance of a supply of pure water for domestic use appears
to have been thoroughly recognised by the Romans. For
although the river Tibor flowed through the city of Rome,
and the Romans at a very early period had made use of its
waters and likewise that of wells, it is now two thousand
e they
collectingha d
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ddimoleshould thefindseoso nwme
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one hundred and seventy-three years since they discovered
the unwholesome characters of such waters, yellow with
1
mud and mingled with sewage as they were. These ancient
ofceth
nated with drainage, and hence they brought the supplies
to their fountains from the sources of the Anio and Tiber
by twenty different aqueducts, at various distances up to
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hatplii
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dotatuunh:
ahaeytannvoodefr
althoughmy theeso eaurr
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served
n axg modernsp:
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classics,
that
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..... Nothing
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entirely lost sight of the sanitary knowledge acquired
selves in the middle of the nineteenth century persisting in
the metropolis of England in perpetrating experiments
upon human health and life, which a little knowledge of
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