gallnut by sulphuric acid, or by potash, it is probable that a substitute may be found in some of the astringent barks, or even in the seeds of the grape. ZOOLOGY. 4. Obesity. The celebrated fat liver pies of Strasburgh are made of the livers of geese, fattened with great attention. The animal is shut up in a cage, but little larger than its body, and is taken out but twice a-day, and then to be fed with about a quart of crude peas. They are introduced with a finger into the pharynx of the animal, which is thus made to swallow this enormous quantity of nourishment, and is then immediately shut up in its cage. The immediate result of this kind of life is a remarkable obesity, and an enormous development of the liver, which, without any notable change of structure, acquired a triple or quadruple enlargement of volume. Bibulous paper brought into close contact with this fat liver, immediately absorbs an oily matter, much like melted fat. These livers sometimes weigh eight or ten ounces, and sell at from three to five francs. The fattening of geese in this manner is a good speculation, for every part of the animal possesses an intrinsic value; the fat on many occasions is a substitute for butter, and the flesh is served at table, and although somewhat tough, is not the less nutritious; the feathers are much sought after, the quills serve for writing, and even the excrements sell at a high price as one of the richest of manures. 5. Portable Milk.-M. Dirchoff, the Russian chemist, who some time since discovered the process of making starch into sugar, has lately made several experiments upon milk: the result of which he has arrived at is curious. He is said to have found a mode of keeping milk for use for any definite space of time. The process of preserving is this: he causes new milk to be evaporated over a slow fire, until it is reduced to a powder. This powder is then put into a bottle, which is hermetically sealed. When the milk is wanted for use, it is only to dissolve some of the powder in a seasonable quantity of water, and the mixture so dissolved will have all the qualities, as well as the taste, of milk.-Edinburgh Agricultural Journal. 6. Quantity of Eggs consumed in London.-The eggs of hens are those most commonly used as food, and form an article of very considerable importance in a commercial point of view. Vast quantities are brought from the country to London, and other great towns. Since the peace they have also been largely imported from the continent. At this moment, indeed, the trade in eggs forms a considerable branch of our commerce with France, and affords constant employment for a number of small vessels. It appears from official statements, that the eggs imported from France amount to about 60,000,000 a-year; and supposing them to cost, at an average, 4d. per dozen, it follows that the people of the metropolis and Brighton (for it is into them that almost all are imported), pay the French above L. 83,000 a-year for eggs; and supposing that the freight, importer's and retailer's profit, duty, &c. raise their price to the consumer to 10d. per dozen, their total cost will be L. 213,000. The duty in 1829 amounted to L. 22,189.-MacCulloch's Commercial Dictionary. [About fifteen years ago the number of eggs exported from Berwick-upon-Tweed to London amounted to L. 30,000 worth a-year.]—Edinburgh Agricultural Journal. 7. Destruction of Fresh-water Fish by the admission of the Sea into a Lake.-The following particulars of the phenomena attending the opening of Lake Lothing at Lowestoft to the Sea, where sea-borne vessels were first received into the new harbour at that place on the 3d of June last, may prove of interest in natural history. They are extracted from the East Anglian Newspaper of June 7. 1831. Some of the circumstances attending the junction of the salt and fresh waters in the first instance are remarkable. The salt-water entered the lake with a strong under current, the fresh-water running out at the same time to the sea upon the surface. The fresh-water of the lake was raised to the top by the eruption of the salt-water beneath, and an immense quantity of yeast-like scum rose to the surface of the lake. The entire body of the water in the lake was elevated above its former level; and, on putting a pole down, a strong under-current could be felt bearing it from the sea; and at a short distance from the loch, next the lake, there was a perceptible and clearly defined line where the salt-water and the fresh met, the former rushing under the latter, and upon this line salt-water might have been taken up in one hand and fresh in the other. The consequences of the admission of the briny waters have been fatal to thousands of the former inhabitants of the peaceful lake. Its surface was thickly studded with the bodies of pike, carp, perch, bream, roach, and dace, multitudes of which were carried into the ocean, and thrown afterwards upon the beach, most of them having been bitten in two by the dog-fish, which abound in the bay. It is a singular fact that a pike of about 20 lb. weight was taken up dead near the Mutford end of the lake, and, on opening the stomach, a herring was found in it entire.-Edinburgh Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, No. xviii. GEOLOGY. 8. Elevations in Australia, New South Wales.-The following elevations above the level of the ocean, of points on the road over the Blue Mountains to Bathurst, and interior to the westward of its meridian, were computed by John Oxley, Esq. late Surveyor-General, from differences of the column of mercury, taken simultaneously in Sidney, and at the respective stations, in the year 1817, which barometrical admeasurements have been, since that period, fully verified by others :— Spring Wood (Military Post) 124 miles from Emu Ford, Caley's Repulse, 18 ditto ditto, Christmas Swamp, 24 ditto ditto, King's Table Land, 264 ditto ditto, 1297 1814 2110 2466 2798 2820 3203 3382 3411 Depot at Cox's River, military post, (Lat. 33° 33′ S., Long. Bathurst Flagstaff, (Lat. 33° 24' S., Long. 149° 29′ 30′′ E.) 2232 148° 20' E.), 600 500 9. On Subterraneous and Ominous Sounds.In a former volume of the Journal, we communicated some curious details in regard to what have been called subterranean and ominous sounds. Sir John Herschell has lately considered this subject, and conjectures that the noises of Nakoos, in Arabia, may be owing to a subterraneous production of steam, by the generation and condensation of which, under certain circumstances, sounds are well known to be produced. They belong to the same class of phenomena as the combustion of a jet of hydrogen gas in glass tubes. He also remarks, that wherever extensive subterraneous caverns exist, communicating with each other, or with the atmosphere, by means of small orifices, considerable differences of temperature may occasion currents of air to pass through those apertures with sufficient velocity for producing sonorous vibrations. The sounds described by Humboldt, as heard at sunrise, by those who sleep on certain granitic rocks, on the banks of the Orinoco, may be explained on this principle. The sounds produced at sunrise, by the statue of Memnon, and the twang, like the breaking of a string, heard by the French naturalists to proceed from a granite mountain at Carnac, are viewed by him as referable to a different cause, viz. to pyrometric expansions and contractions of the heterogeneous material of which the statue and mountain consist. Similar sounds, and from the same cause, are emitted when heat is applied to any connected mass of machinery; and the snapping often heard in the bars of a grate affords a familiar example of this phenomenon. The following amusing account of an ominous sound is given by Gairdner in his book on the "Music of Nature:"In one of the baronial castles of the north, which has been uninhabited for years, there were heard at times such extraordinary noises, as to confirm the opinion among the country people that the place was haunted. In the western tower an old couple were permitted to live, who had been in the service of the former lord, but so imbued were they with the superstitions of the country, that they never went to bed without expecting to hear the cries of the disturbed spirits of the mansion. An old story was current, that an heir-apparent had been murdered by an uncle, that he might possess the estate, who, however, after enjoying it for a time, was so annoyed by the sounds in the castle, that he retired with an uneasy conscience from the domain, and died in France. Not many years ago, the property descended to a branch of the female line (one of the heroes of Waterloo), who, nothing daunted, was determined to make this castle his place of residence. As the noises were a subject of real terror to his tenantry, he formed the resolution of sleeping in the castle on the night he took possession, in order to do away these superstitious fears. Not a habitable room could be found, except the one occupied by the old gardener and his wife in the western turret, and he ordered his camp-bed to be set up in that apartment. It was in the autumn, at nightfall, that he repaired to the gloomy abode, leaving his servant, to his no small comfort, at the village inn; and after having found every thing com fortably provided, turned the large old rusty key upon the antiquated pair, who took leave of him to lodge at a farm hard by. It was one of those nights which are checkered with occasional gleams of moonshine and darkness, when the clouds are riding in a high wind. He slept well for the two first hours; he was then wakened by a low mournful sound that ran through the apartments. This warned him to be up and accoutred. He descended the turret stairs with a brilliant light, which, on coming to the ground floor, cast a gigantic shadow of himself upon the high embattled walls. Here he stood and listened, when presently a hollow moan ran through the long corridor, and died away. This was followed by one of a higher key, a sort of scream, which directed his footsteps with more certainty to the spot. Pursuing the sounds, he found himself in the hall of his ancestors, and vaulting upon the large oaken table, set down his lamp, and folding his cloak about him, determined to wait for the appearance of all that was terrible. The night, which had been stormy, became suddenly still; the dark flitting clouds had sunk below the horizon, and the moon insinuated her silvery light through the chinks of the mouldering pile. As our hero had spent the morning in the chase, Morpheus came unbidden, and he fell asleep upon the table. His dream was short; for close upon him issued forth the horrid groan; amazed, he started up and sprang at the unseen voice, fixing, with a powerful blow, his Toledo steel in the arras. The blade was fast, and held him to the spot. At this moment the moon shot a ray that illumined the hall, and showed that behind the waving folds there lay the cause concealed. His sword he left, |