Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1873-10-25
CURIOUS ANp SCIENTIFIC.

% A4ne II good % aDoOfD
putrid efluvia and to stop pu~trefaction.
Use as lime is used.
We notice hat diamond-cutting has
recently been introduced in Birming-
ham, England, where there is every
prospect of the art reaching a flourish
ing state. Recent advices also inform
MS that a huge diamond has been dis
covered and brought from the cape.
1t weighs 2SSs carats in the rough, and
when cut will be half as large again as
the world-renowned Koh-I-Noor.
ACTION OF WATER ON LEAD PIPES. ST.
Robert Christison, who has devoted
much attention to the influence of water
upon lead in passing through pipes,
ETC., has aseertained that the purest
waters are these which act most pow
erfully upon lead, corroding it, and
forming a carbonate of a peculiar and
uniform composition, and hat all salts
impede this action, manyprevent it alto
gether, ome of them doing so when in
extremely minute proportions.
A CHOLERA SPECIFIC. "A correspond
ent of the C~ultivator and Country Gen
tleman writes that one heaping tea
spoonful Of -four of sulphur and one
heaping ~teaspoonful of powdered char
coal, mixed with whisky to the consis-
tency of cream, and taken after each dis
charge, is considered by him almost a
specific for cholera. He states that the
above is a very large dose, and that it
will sometimes check the discharge so
suddenly as to bring on 4 feverish state
in such cases oil or pills will remove
the bad effects. He says that he has
used this as a remedy in all obstinate
kinds Of bowel complaints with great
success. The recipe was obtained from
a gentleman who used it while on the
Ohio and Mississippi river boats
New AND REMARKABLE CANNON The
German journals announce that the re-
cent trials of new guns on iron-plated
targets, which took place at Tegel, near
Berlin, fully satisfied nil expeditions.
The shot from the 11-inch ring cast
steel gun penetrated al iron plate u
inches thick, that from the 1O.inch gun
of the same pattern an iron plate of II
inches, and there was force to spare
in both cases. At Krupp's works, at
Essen, trials have been made with the
newly-constructed 30} centimeters (12-
inch ring cast-steel gun, and the re-
suit i~ustifes the belief that this gun
will pierce IA and perhaps Is inches of
armor. Thus the strongest iron.clad
now existing, Her British Maiesty's ship
Devastation, which is provided with an
armor of IA inches, will no longer be
in%yulnerable if opposed to such guns.
POTATOEs PRESCRIBED. - Several Ger
man writers upon races predict that ma
tions, far from improving, will deterior-
ate both in physical and mental char
acteristics, if potatoes become a princi-
pal article of diet. The celebrated Carl
Weight says that "The nourishing po-
tato does not restore the wasted tissues,
but makes II proletariats physically
and mentally weak" The Holland ply
siologist, Mulder, gives the same iudg-
ment when he declares that the Excess
sive use of potatoes among the poorer
classes, and coffee and tea by the higher
ranks, is the cause of the Incidence of
nations. Leidenfrost maintains that the
revolutions of the last three centuries
have been caused by the changed nour-
ishment the lowest workmen, in former
times, ate more flesh than now, when
the cheap potato forms his principal
substance, but gives him no muscular or
nervous strength,
A CHRISTIAN nation, Jealous of its
laws, but careless of its people-conser-
-.