Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/783

Rh decreasing, and then another iron employed. If a red-hot iron only is used, the agony is intense. The first time I saw the cautery used, on a girl of fourteen years, no pain was given; the second time, on an elderly person (both for fungus in the upper maxillary bone) her screeching was fearful, till I told the operator his irons were not half hot enough. He requested me to heat them properly, which being done, not a murmur was heard. The last time was opening four or five sinuses in a horse's shoulder. He never flinched and scarcely seemed aware of what was being done. I would suggest using—to obtain the white heat for actual cautery—a large spirit blow-pipe."

An Edible Lizard.—Dr. Burt G. Wilder communicates to the American Naturalist a brief note on the Menobranchus maculatus as an article of food. This animal he regards as probably a variety of the banded Proteus, or big water-lizard, but it is never striped, and always spotted. So abundant are they in Cayuga Lake that a single fisherman brought him a hundred of them during the month of March. The animal is held to be poisonous, and the fishermen dislike even to touch them. So far, however, is this from being the case, that they are absolutely harmless in every way. Dr. Wilder and his associate, Dr. Barnard, have eaten one which was cooked, and found it excellent. It is their intention to recommend the Menobranchus for food, but not until all their investigations into the anatomy and embryology of the animal are concluded.

Conversion of Wood into Lignite.—In one of the old mines of the Upper Hartz, in Hanover, some of the wood originally employed in timbering has become so far altered as to assume most of the characters of a new lignite, or brown coal. Many of the levels in the ancient workings of this mine are filled with refuse matter, consisting chiefly of fragments of clay-slate, more or less saturated with mine-water, and containing here and there fragments of the old timbering. When wet, this wood is of a leathery consistence, but in the air it soon hardens, having most if not all the characters of lignite. It breaks with a conchoidal fracture, and the parts that are most altered have the black, lustrous appearance of the German "pitch coals." Chemical examination shows that this altered wood is nearer to true coal than some of the younger tertiary lignites. From all this it would appear that the transformation of vegetable matter into coal requires less time than is usually estimated by geologists; in the present instance it cannot have been over four centuries.

Indictment of the English Sparrows.—In his "Key to North-American Birds," Mr. Coues expressed his apprehensions that the English sparrow would molest and drive away our native species. He now writes to the American Naturalist that these apprehensions have already been verified. From a letter written by Mr. Thomas G. Gentry, it appears that, in the neighborhood of Germantown, Pa., the English sparrows are driving away the robins, blue-birds, and native sparrows. "They increase so rapidly, and are so pugnacious, that our smaller native birds are compelled to seek quarters elsewhere." It is chiefly on this account that Mr. Coues has always been opposed to the introduction of the English sparrow, but also for other reasons. He holds that there is no occasion for them in this country, and that the good they do in destroying certain insects has been overrated. The time will come, he says, when it will be deemed advisable to take measures to get rid of these birds, or at least to check their increase.

Anatomy of the Porpoise.—Mr. Frank Buckland, having dissected a porpoise, gives some interesting information on the structure of that animal. In the matter of bowels it is well provided for, the specimen examined having 62 feet 2 inches of intestine. The stomach was so complicated that it could not be made out by ordinary dissection. To get round the difficulty, Mr. Buckland hung it up by the œsophagus, and filled it with plaster of Paris, of which nearly a pailful was required before the organ was fully distended. It was then found that the porpoise has two stomachs—one in which the prey is kept, and the other in which it is digested. A careful section of the head showed the blow-hole to be a most