Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/531

Rh In September, 1846, Morton, a former pupil of Wells's, aware of his discovery and repeating his experiments, extracted a tooth without pain, while the patient was under the influence of sulphuric ether. 3. In 1847 Simpson first introduced the practice of anæsthesia in midwifery, thereby making known more widely its value. He also discovered the anæsthetic properties of chloroform, and by his writings and teachings very largely contributed, to introducing the practice of anæsthesia to the world. 4. Others have since discovered the anæsthetic properties of different vapors, which are more or less used in practice.

Loss of Self-Control in Battle.—In his "History of the Civil War in America," the Count de Paris gives some curious instances of the loss of self-possession among soldiers in the heat of battle. He states that, among 24,000 loaded muskets picked up at random on the Gettysburg battle-field, one-fourth only were properly loaded; 12,000 contained each a double charge, and the other fourth from three to ten charges. In some there were six balls to a single charge of powder; others contained six cartridges, one on top of the other, without having been opened. A few had twenty-three complete charges regularly inserted. Finally, in the barrel of a single musket there were found, confusedly jumbled together, twenty-two balls and sixty-two buckshot, with a proportionate quantity of powder! "But we should not severlyseverely [sic] criticise the American soldier," adds the author, "for it appears that an examination of the battle-fields of the Crimea gave similar results."

Pennsylvania Coal-Supply.—The available coal of the Alleghany coal-field is estimated by Mr. Andrew Roy, in the Engineering and Mining Journal, at 743,424,000,000 tons, an amount nearly ten times greater than the estimates made by Edward Hull and Warrington Smith of the coal resources of the British Isles. The same writer states the aggregate thickness of workable coal in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania as 200 feet in 2,175 feet of coal-measures. In the bituminous regions of Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg, he estimates 60 or 70 feet of workable coal to 2,000 feet of coal-measures. In West Virginia, where the Kanawha River cuts the coal-measures to their base, 78 feet thickness of coal in 16 seams is revealed; and along the Ohio, from Bellaire to Pomeroy, the proportion is 40 or 50 feet of coal in 1,200 to 1,400 of rock. The number of workable seams and consequent thickness of coal in every division of the coal-area are in proportion to the thickness of the carboniferous rocks. Beginning at the base of the coal-measures, and reaching up to the height of 400 feet, to the base of the barren measures, there exist, in the bituminous regions, 3 feet of coal for every 50 feet of strata. The next 400 feet are generally barren of workable coal; but from the Pittsburg seam, which is the lowest bed of the upper series, to the outcrops or top of the coal-strata, the same general estimate of 3 feet of workable coal to every 50 feet of rock will hold good.

The People of Eastern New Guinea.—Signor d'Albertis agrees with Moresby in describing the inhabitants of Eastern New Guinea as of materially different race from the true Papuans, who are found in the far west of the island. The people of Yule Island, and of the coasts east and west of it, resemble those of the Polynesian region in many respects. The indigenous Papuans, physically and morally inferior to these Polynesian invaders, have been driven from the coast, where the land is comparatively healthy and fertile, and have permitted the intruders to establish themselves and multiply. The inhabitants of the interior are darker in color, the hair is more frizzed, and there is a difference in the form of the face, the prognathous appearance being more common than on the coast. From what D'Albertis has seen of the interior, he concludes that the land is very suitable for colonization, being well watered, with abundance of grass, and having a good climate without excessive heat. The natives are described as "intelligent, industrious, and persevering."

Body Temperature of the Drunkard.—Observations made by Dr. Reincke, of Hamburg, on eighteen drunken men, leave no doubt as to the great reduction of