microscope. ‘And while you’re about it,’ he suggested, ‘it had better
be a good one.’ At first, I was inclined to suspect that this was an
artful device for the further indulgence of his entomological vices,
and that the implement would be devoted to post-mortem examinations
of deceased caterpillars or other kindred abominations. He assured
me, however, that such was not the case, and that the microscope
was nowadays ‘the very sheet-anchor of analytical science.’ The
‘sheet-anchor’ completely took the wind out of my sails. (I feel that
there is rather a confusion of metaphor here, but, not being a nautical
person, I don’t feel competent to set it right.) I surrendered,
humbly remarking that I supposed a five-pound note would cover it.
The youthful analyst laughed me to scorn. The very least, he assured
me, that a good working microscope could be got for would be ten or
twelve pounds. Ultimately, I agreed to purchase one at ten guineas,
and congratulated myself that at anyrate _that_ was done with. On the
contrary, it was only just begun. No sooner had my analyst secured his
microscope, than he began to insist upon the purchase of a number of
auxiliary appliances, which, it appeared, no respectable microscope
would be seen without. He broke them to me by degrees. At first he
only mentioned, if I remember right, an ‘achromatic condenser,’ at two
guineas. Next came a ‘double nosepiece’ (why ‘double,’ I don’t know);
then a polarising apparatus and a camera lucida (four pounds ten); then
a micrometer and a microtome (three guineas more); then somebody’s
prism, at one pound five; and somebody else’s microspectroscope, at
I don’t know how much. Here, however, I put my foot down. _I_ am
compelled to regard the sordid consideration of price, though science
doesn’t.
The microscope and its subsidiary apparatus were duly delivered; but
my analyst appeared to be in no particular hurry to convey them to the
laboratory where he was studying. On my making a remark to this effect,
he replied: ‘Haven’t taken them to the laboratory? No; and I’m not
going to. Mr Scrutin has got a precious sight better microscope than
mine—cost sixty guineas without the little extra articles, and they
were about thirty more. _He_’s got a microspectroscope, if you like!’
I refrained from arguing the point, and mildly remarked that in that
case he might have used Mr Scrutin’s microscope, and saved me some
twenty guineas. But he rejected the idea with scorn, and explained that
_his_ microscope was not for laboratory use, but for ‘private study.’
So far as my observation went, my analyst’s private study had hitherto
been confined to a short pipe and the last number of some penny
dreadful; but I did not think it wise to check his new-born ardour; I
contented myself by observing that I only hoped he would ‘stick to it.’
‘No fear of that,’ he rejoined, as indignantly as a limpet might have
done in answer to the same observation. ‘Why, microscopy is the most
fascinating study out.—Just take a squint at _that_, now.’
I looked down the tube, but couldn’t see anything at all, and made a
remark to that effect.
‘Oh, that’s because you haven’t got the focus.—_Now_, try again.’
I tried again, and saw a sort of network of red fibre.
‘I’ll bet sixpence you can’t tell me what _that_ is!’ he exclaimed
triumphantly.
I owned the soft impeachment.
‘That’s the maxillary gland of a rat.’
‘Dear me!’ I said.
‘Yes. Isn’t it lovely? Here’s another.—Now, just look at that.’ (A
queer granular-looking object.) ‘You don’t know what that is?’
‘Give it up,’ I said.
‘That’s a section of the epidermis of the great toe.’
‘Great toe!’ I exclaimed in disgust. ‘What on earth have analysts got
to do with great toes?’
‘Oh, nothing particular,’ he said airily. ‘But we like to have as much
variety as possible. I should like to have a section of everything, if
I could get it.—Here’s another pretty slide; that is the section of a
diseased potato; and this one is a bit of a frog’s leg.’
‘Very instructive, I daresay,’ I remarked; ‘but I hope you haven’t made
me spend twenty pounds merely to improve your acquaintance with frogs’
legs and diseased potatoes. Mr Scrutin surely doesn’t analyse such
things as these?’
‘I can’t say we do much in frogs’ legs,’ he said; ‘but there are lots
of things adulterated with potato. Flour and arrowroot, and butter, and
cocoa, and—and—a heap of things. And the potato’s just as likely to be
diseased as not. It _may_ be, anyhow, and there you are! If you don’t
know what diseased potato looks like, you’re done.’
‘A pleasant lookout,’ I replied, ‘if half-a-dozen of the commonest
articles of food are habitually adulterated.’
‘Bless you, that’s nothing,’ he replied. ‘If _that_ was all, there
wouldn’t be much harm done. There are a jolly sight worse adulterations
than that. In fact, pretty nearly everything’s adulterated, and some of
’em with rank poisons.’
‘Rank poisons! That’s manslaughter!’
‘O no; it isn’t,’ he calmly rejoined. ‘Of course, they don’t put in
enough to kill you right off. And if you find something disagreeing
with you, you can’t swear what it is. It _may_ be the nux vomica in the
beer; but it’s just as likely to be entozoa in the water, or copper
in the last bottle of pickles. However, you’re all right _now_. With
an analyst in the family, at anyrate you shan’t be poisoned without
knowing it. _I_’ll let you know what you are eating and drinking.—This
fellow’—and he patted the microscope affectionately—‘will tell you all
about that.’
* * * * *
And it did. From that day forth I have never enjoyed a meal, and I
never expect to do so again. I have always been particular to deal at
respectable establishments, and to pay a fair price, in the hope of
insuring a good article. I have, or had, a very tolerable appetite,
and till that dreadful microscope came into the house, I used to get a
good deal of enjoyment out of life. But now all is changed. My analyst
began by undermining my faith in our baker. Now, if there was one of
our tradesmen in whom, more than another, I had confidence, it was
the baker, who supplied what seemed to me a good, solid, satisfying
article, with no nonsense about it. But one day, shortly after the
conversation I have recorded, my analyst remarked at breakfast-time:
‘We had a turn at bread yesterday at the laboratory—examined five
samples; and found three of ’em adulterated. And do you know’—holding
up a piece of our own bread and smelling it critically—‘I rather fancy
this of ours is rather dicky.’
‘Nonsense!’ I cried. ‘It’s very good bread—capital bread!’
‘_You_ may think so,’ he continued calmly; ‘but you’re not an analyst.
I shall take a sample of this to the laboratory, and you shall have my
report upon it.’
‘Take it, by all means. But if you find anything wrong about that
bread, I’ll eat my hat!’
‘Better not make rash promises. I’ll take a good big sample, and you
shall have my report on it to-night.’
On his return home in the evening, he began: ‘I’ve been having a go-in
at your bread. It’s not pure, of course; but there isn’t very much
the matter with it. There’s a little potato, and a little rice, and a
little alum; and with those additions, it takes up a good deal more
water than it ought, so you don’t get your proper weight.’
‘Ahem!’ I said, ‘if that’s the case, we’ll change our baker. I’m not
going to pay for a mixture of potatoes and water, and call it bread.
But as for alum, that’s all nonsense. If they put _that_ in, we should
taste it.’
‘O no; you wouldn’t. When alum is put in bread, it decomposes and forms
sulphate of potash, an aperient salt. It disagrees with you, of course,
but you don’t taste it. As for changing your baker, the next fellow
you tried might be a jolly sight worse; _he_ might put in bone-dust,
or plaster of Paris, or sulphate of copper. And besides, half the
adulterations are in the flour already, before it reaches the baker.
Of course, that doesn’t prevent his doing a little more on his own
account.’
And with that the matter dropped, so far as the bread was concerned;
but my confidence was rudely shaken.
A few days later, my analyst remarked: ‘I don’t think much of this
milk;’ and he forthwith appropriated a sample for analytical purposes;
but, happily, was compelled to own that it wasn’t quite so bad as he
expected. It had more than its proper proportion of water; but that
_might_ arise—he charitably suggested—from the cow being unwell.
To make up the deficiency, it had been fortified with treacle and
coloured with arnatto, but these my analyst appeared to regard as quite
every-day falsifications.
‘It’s a rascally shame,’ I said. ‘If one can’t put faith in the
milk-jug, it’s a bad lookout for the Blue Ribbon gentlemen. However,
let us hope that the tea and coffee are all right.’
‘Not likely!’ he rejoined. ‘Nearly all tea is “faced,” as they call it,
more or less, and the facing is itself an adulteration. As for coffee,
you don’t expect to get _that_ pure, do you? It’s sure to be mixed with
chicory, anyhow, and very probably with roasted acorns, beans, mahogany
sawdust, or old tan. Baked horse-liver occasionally; but that’s an
extreme case. If by any remote chance there wasn’t anything wrong in
the original coffee, you get it in the chicory; and very often there
are adulterations in both; so you get ’em twice over.’
‘If that’s the case, no more ground coffee for me. We’ll grind our own,
and then we are sure to be safe.’
‘You mustn’t make too cocksure of that. Some years ago, an ingenious
firm took out a patent for a machine to mould chicory into the shape of
coffee-berries. Smart chaps those! And of course they can put anything
they like into the chicory before they work it up.’
‘That’s pleasant, certainly. Then how is one to secure pure coffee?’
‘You can’t secure it, except by sending a sample to us, or some
other shop of the same sort, to have it analysed; and if it’s wrong,
prosecute your grocer for adulteration. After doing that a few times,
he might find it didn’t pay, and give it up.’
‘And how much would that cost?’
‘Analysis of a sample of coffee, one guinea; analysis of butter, five
guineas; analysis of milk, one guinea; analysis of tea, one guinea.
Those are the regular charges for private analyses.’
‘Rather expensive, it seems.—And how much would it cost to prosecute?’
‘Ah, that I can’t tell you,’ said my analyst. ‘Another fiver, or more,
I daresay.—But look at the satisfaction.’
I did look at it, but ultimately decided to give my grocer the benefit
of the doubt, and cherish a fond hope that he was better than his
fellows. The subject dropped. But a few days later, there chanced to
be apple-pudding on the table. With the dish in question my analyst
had always been in the habit of consuming brown sugar, and a good deal
of it. Now, however, on the sugar-basin—best Demerara—being offered to
him, he put on an expression as if he had been invited to partake of
black draught.
‘Raw sugar! No, thank you.’
‘Hillo, what’s wrong with the sugar? Is that adulterated too?’
‘Very probably,’ he loftily replied. ‘But that’s a small matter. The
genuine article is bad enough.’
‘Bad enough!’ indignantly interposed my analyst’s mamma. ‘That’s Mr
Grittles’s very best moist—threepence-three-farthings a pound!’
‘I daresay it is. If it was fourpence, it wouldn’t make any
difference.—Did you ever hear of the sugar-mite, _Acarus sacchari_’——
‘No; I can’t say I ever did,’ I said, ‘and I don’t want to, either. We
have had enough of this sort of thing, and I am not going to have any
more agonies over every article we eat.’
I had again put my foot down. But it was too late. I had even forbidden
my analyst, under penalty of forfeiture of his pocket-money for
several months to come, telling us anything whatever about the food
we eat or the drink we imbibe; but the mischief was done. I have lost
my confidence in my fellow-man, and still more in my fellow-man’s
productions. I may try in an imperfect way to protect our household.
I may give the strictest orders that none but the refinedest of sugar
shall be admitted into our store-cupboard; but who is to answer for the
man who makes the jam and the marmalade, or the other man who makes the
Madeira cakes and the three-cornered tarts? And how much is there that
we have _not_ heard? I have silenced my analyst’s lips, it is true;
but there is also a language of the eyes, and still more a language of
the nose, and when, with a scornful tip-tilt of the latter, he says,
‘No, thank you,’ to anything, my appetite is destroyed for that meal. I
can’t take a pill or a black draught without my disordered imagination
picturing my chemist ‘pestling a poisoned poison’ behind his counter. I
can’t even eat a new-laid egg or crack a nut without wondering what it
is adulterated with. This is morbid, no doubt. I am quite aware that it
is morbid, but I can’t help it. I am like Governor Sancho in the island
of Barataria: my choicest dishes are whisked away from me—or rendered
nauseous, which is as bad—at the bidding of a grim being who calls
himself Analytical Science. He may not know anything about it, or he
may be lying; but meanwhile he has spoilt my appetite, and the dish may
go away untasted for me.
Truly, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The moral of my painful
story is obvious. I intend to bring up the rest of my family, if
possible, to occupations involving no knowledge whatever.
THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.
About two years ago, we recorded an interesting discovery which had
been made on the coast of Norway, that of a viking war-ship, which had
formed the tomb of some forgotten Danish freebooter. We have now to
chronicle a somewhat similar find, which has recently been unearthed at
Brigg, in Lincolnshire. While the workmen were excavating the ground
for a new gas-holder, they came upon a block of oak, which ultimately
proved to be an ancient British vessel of extraordinary size. It is cut
out of a solid piece of wood, and measures forty-eight feet in length,
fifty-two inches in width, and thirty-three inches in depth. The boat
is in a wonderfully good state of preservation, owing, no doubt, to the
clayey nature of the soil in which it lies, and which has effectually
sealed up every cranny against the intrusion of the air. The discovery
of this prehistoric relic is of such interest, that it is to be hoped
some way of preserving it from the action of the weather will be found
before it is too late.
Only a few years ago, an ancient wooden causeway was discovered in the
same neighbourhood—a causeway made of squared balks of timber fifteen
feet long and ten inches square. The ends of these logs were bored
with holes for the reception of pegs, so that the whole structure
could be firmly fastened to the earth. This was evidently a necessary
precaution; for the causeway crosses the valley of the river Ancholme,
and would be subject to removal by the action of the tidal waters.
It is believed that an extensive shallow lagoon once existed in the
Ancholme valley, and that this was slowly filled up with alluvium. It
is to this silting up with a non-porous soil that the preservation of
both the boat and the causeway is due.
The _Times of India_ raises a curious point about a certain meteor
of unusual brilliancy which was seen in India on a certain night
in January last. Curiously enough, a meteor which was described by
eye-witnesses in almost the same language which was used by the Indian
observers, passed over London on the same evening. It was travelling
in an easterly direction, and appeared about two hours and a half
before the meteor noted in India. The question raised by this double
appearance is: Are these two meteors really one and the same? The
distance between the two points of observation is between five and six
thousand miles, which would give a rate of movement for the meteor of
thirty-five and a half miles per minute. The question is a startling
one, which we should think could be easily answered by consulting the
logs of various vessels which were near the presumed track of the
meteor on the night of its occurrence. Such an unusual appearance could
not fail to have been recorded.
The celebrated Christy Ethnographical Collection has now been added
to the British Museum, and for the first time it may be said that the
country which has the best opportunities of studying prehistoric and
semi-barbarous peoples in all the countries of the world, is not behind
its neighbours in its collection of objects for promoting that study.
Mr Henry Christy, who died in 1865, left his wonderful collection to
four trustees, to deal with it as they might think fit in the best
interests of science. These trustees offered the collection to the
national Museum on the very wise condition, that it was not to become
the property of the Museum until it should be publicly exhibited there.
This proviso has prevented the collection being packed away into
cellars for an indefinite time, a fate which has befallen too many
treasures intrusted to the national Museum.
The delegates of the French Chambers of Commerce who accompanied M.
de Lesseps during the late survey of the Panama Canal works, have
now returned with hopeful tales of the ultimate success of the grand
project for uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Briefly put, the
matter stands thus: let money be supplied, and the work can be brought
to a glorious termination. M. de Lesseps affirms that the canal can be
opened for traffic as soon as 1889; and he points to the circumstance
that all contracts expire in 1888. But contractors are but mortal, and
it is believed by experts that the hard Culebra rocks, which present
the most formidable obstacle to the prosecution of the work, cannot be
cut through in less than five years. These rocks are more than a mile
in length, and in some spots they rise to a height of more than one
hundred and fifty feet above the canal level.
In a recent article on ‘The National Egg-supply,’ a contemporary
gives some interesting particulars regarding the productiveness of
different kinds of fowls. The laying power of each hen is said to be
on an average one hundred eggs per annum. This seems a small average.
Some fowls will lay as many as two hundred and twenty per annum, but
the larger proportion yield not more than from sixty-five to one
hundred and twenty per annum. Care and proper food have much to do with
productiveness, as all keepers of fowls know well. A large portion
of our egg-supply comes from Ireland, where the birds are not nearly
so well tended as they are in England and Scotland. A score of Irish
eggs selected at random from a large crate weighed a little under two
pounds. The eggs from good Dorkings will weigh six ounces more than
this. The eggs from Spanish fowls weigh two pounds fourteen ounces per
score; while those from Leghorns weigh as much as three pounds for the
same quantity. The total cost of our annual egg-supply is calculated to
be nearly seven millions sterling.
Mr W. K. Brooks, of the John Hopkins University of America, has put
forward a new observation regarding oyster spat, which may account for
the failure of the fisheries in many parts of this country. He remarks
that the young oyster as it settles upon the bottom of the sea is in
some localities so covered with sediment that it is killed at a very
early stage of existence. He holds that the tender oyster should find
a resting-place which must be clean as well as free from destructive
pests. He recommends the employment of floating frames furnished with a
bottom of galvanised wire-netting for the reception of the fry. Under
such conditions, it is found that oysters grow with wonderful rapidity.
Anglers know well that the voracious pike is a fish most tenacious of
life, and that hours after he has lain in the fishing-creel apparently
dead, he is quite capable of giving a snap with his sharp teeth. But
few are aware how long a pike will live out of his proper element. A
Paris fishmonger recently received a quantity of fish from Rotterdam
which were packed in ice. Among these was a pike over two feet long,
which, on unpacking, was seen slightly to move its gills. The fish was
placed in fresh water, with the result that in a few hours it was fully
alive and very active. This fish, as far as can be learnt, was actually
out of the water for three days, during which time it travelled nearly
three hundred miles. It is now in the Trocadero Aquarium, and seems to
have fully recovered from its curious experience.
The _Sanitary Record_ informs metropolitan householders that their
peace is threatened with a new danger. A London resident found that
each time the water was turned on to his house, a plentiful supply of
coal-gas was delivered gratis at the same time and through the same
pipes. The explanation of the matter is as follows: in the particular
street where this strange thing happened, the soil round the water main
is completely saturated with gas from leaky pipes. When the water is
turned off, there is a vacuum formed in the main, and gas is sucked in
through imperfect joints, to be delivered to the unfortunate residents
directly the water is again turned on. The matter can of course be
easily remedied; but the serious lesson taught by the incident is that
gas can find its way to water-pipes, and that sewer-gas may as easily
do so as coal-gas.
The last application of rock-oil is a petroleum engine, which we saw
working lately in London. In general appearance, it is like a gas
engine; but it has a tank fixed above the cylinder which contains a
supply of petroleum. This liquid is conveyed by a small pipe and pump
to the cylinder at the rate of about four drops per stroke of the
piston rod. It is ignited by a spirit-lamp after having been mingled
with sufficient air to form an explosive mixture. The working cost of
the engine is calculated at three-halfpence per horse-power per hour
for petroleum, and one-sixth of that sum for lubricating. The engine
will be valuable where gas is not to be obtained and where steam is
inadmissible.
Mr William Anderson lately delivered an interesting lecture before the
Royal Institution ‘On New Applications of the Mechanical Properties
of Cork to the Arts.’ He showed that cork was unique among solid
substances in being capable of cubical compression both from forces
applied in opposite directions and from pressure from all sides. This
is shown when cork is immersed in water and is subjected to hydraulic
pressure. The phenomenon in question is due to the peculiar cellular
structure of the material, which causes it to behave more like a gas
when under pressure than like a solid. Mr Anderson proposes to use
cork instead of air in the air-vessels of water-raising machinery,
and he showed by experiment how well fitted it was for doing this
duty. He also proposes to use it in connection with gun-carriages in
the following way: the carriage is to be furnished with hydraulic
compressors in the customary manner, but the water in the cylinders is
to be driven by the recoil of the gun into a vessel filled with cork.
This will represent a store of energy which will run the gun out again
when loaded, by the aid of a tap which will liberate the water from
the compressed cork. The lecture certainly exhibited cork in a new
character, and called attention to many ways in which it can be used
with advantage.
The nebula in the Pleiades, so strangely discovered by photography,
although it was quite invisible to ordinary telescopic scrutiny, has
now been detected by more than one observer. It is, however, as may be
guessed, an extremely faint object. MM. Perrotin and Thollon, of the
observatory at Nice, say that they have seen it, but admit at the same
time that this was only because they knew from the Paris photograph
that it existed.
The number of valuable substances which can be extracted from coal-tar
is marvellous, and would surprise gas manufacturers of a generation
ago, who gladly gave away the tar to any one who would take it. The
last product of the black and ill-smelling fluid is a substance which
has been named Saccharin, on account of its extreme sweetness, and
the discovery is due to Professor Fahlberg. Saccharin is said to be
two hundred and thirty times sweeter than the best cane-sugar. It has
a great interest for the medical profession, for it can be used to
render palatable the food of patients suffering from diabetes, and has
been already adopted for this service in one of the Berlin hospitals.
At present, the new sweetener costs forty shillings per pound. It has
been ascertained by experiment that saccharin is innocuous; and we may
feel sure that if its price can be reduced, it will become a formidable
rival to sugar.
The chief of the United States Geological Survey, Major Powell, has
discovered near California what he believes to be the oldest human
habitations on the American continent. The mountains in the vicinity
are covered with beds of lava, in which have been excavated square
rooms, lined with a kind of cement made with lava. Although these
rock-dwellers were of prehistoric time, their work shows traces of an
advanced civilisation. Several articles of pottery have been found in
these cave-dwellings, as well as a kind of cloth made of woven hair.
Wrapped in such a cloth, which tumbled into dust when touched, there
was found a small image resembling a man. No fewer than sixty groups of
these villages in the lava have been found.