, 1875-03-03
MIS- LIAM 60 U S,
tFrom the Trinidad Oh. Paris Science Letter.

The services rendered by TIE PIGEON
POST during the siege Of Paris, are well
known so appreciated have they been,
that since the peace, European nations
have bestowed as much attention on the
establishment OF military pigeon-COts, as
on the improvement Of artillery. Prussia,
of course, has since 1872 maintained a cor
respondence daily between Metz, Berlin,
and Cologne, and her many grand fortress
es, and pigeons leave the Northern Rail
way terminus in Paris for Cologne at Eve
in the morning, reaching their destination
at noon. But then the birds are of a beau
tiful race, and cost G5fr. each. The French
government is establishing a carrier-pigeon
depot, in the Jardin d'AccIimation it
possesses 400 pigeons of the most superior
race to be found in Belgium-the nursery
ground of such pigeons from this depot,
every fortress in the country will be sup
piled with the birds. Hitherto it has been
the custom to habituatc the pigeons to
take but a special route, but the French are
training them to fly in every direction.
During the siege several of these winged
c%ouriers were lost; the operators in their
ignorance not knowing the time and the
season for sending the birds forth, paid no
attention to frost and snow covering
the ground. Now II. R0denJach shows,
that a pigeon loses entirely the facility in
finding its way when the earth is covered
with snow. Perhaps the snow changes
the aspect of places, or deranges the view
of the bird, proverbialIy so piercing, Or
possibly it has fear of bein8,coyered by ex-
pected falling snow. The pigeon ordioa-
rily flies from the south, northwards !;
points northwards as instinctjyely as the
needle of a compass. Now when pigeons
are set free in Paris to fly to Belgium, they
are impatient to quit the basket but if
liberated in the east of France they betray
10 such Impotence, and when they are
set free, they mount to an enormous
height, graveIy seek with their bills the
points of the horizon, and finish by flying
in the direction opposite to their cots.
Hence, the labor of the military pigeon
trainers in France, is TO accustom the birds
to return from any point of the horizon
within a circle of 400 miles.
IT. 4 tCCTU DUHtU has utdWi dIIcIllIOu "
the treatment of pulmonary complaints in
general and of PHTHIsIs in particular.
He admits that this disease, an affection of
the blood, can be cured, not by any speci-
fc remedy, bat by a more studious atten-
ton to the ordinary health-precautions-
pure and frequently changed air, certifying
diet, moderate exercise, milk, and employ
ment of sulphuretted, and arsenical wa
tiers emigration to mild climates in winter,
to mountain districts in summer, and the
recourse to hyposulphites, alkaline and
earthly sulphites
Paris cannot complain of the want of q
grand system of SEWERAGE; the difficulty
is to get rid of the collected water. An
cient Rome boosted of three wonders her
roads, her a%cqueducts, andhersewers; along
the latter a Wagon laden with hay could
pass without touching the walls; to
cleanse or flush them, the water of the
seven a%cqueducts was turned into them
the sewers were considered so important
that they were put under the protection
of the goddess Cloacina, or "Purifier,"
which was the surname of Venus. The
sewerse mptied into the Tiber, as do those
OF Paris to day into the Seine, so that the