certain green tinge which
always makes its appearance on the abdomen, even before the cadaverous
smell, and is a positive evidence that decomposition has begun. There
are some people to whom the knowledge of this fact will be a
satisfaction; but if, as is popularly supposed, bodies are not
unfrequently buried alive, how is it that we never hear of a revival
in a dissecting-room? Then, on another point of physiology, M. Payerne
states, with regard to the distress experienced by many persons in the
ascent of a high mountain, 'that the lassitude and breathlessness felt
in elevated places appear to proceed, not from an insufficiency of
oxygen, but rather from the rupture of the equilibrium between the
tension of the fluids contained in our organs and that of the ambient
air, whatever be the way in which the rupture is produced.' And, to
close these physiological matters, M. Chuart begs the Academie to
include among their premiums for rendering arts or trades less
insalubrious, one for 'different inventions designed to diminish the
frequency of accidents which take place in coal-mines from explosions
of gas.' How much such inventions are needed, recent events in our own
coal districts but too painfully demonstrate.

Our Meteorological Society may perhaps take a hint from M. Liais's
suggestion as to the 'possibility of applying photography to determine
the height of clouds, and to the observation of shooting-stars;' and
M.F. Cailliaud, director of the museum at Nantes, says something not
uninteresting to naturalists--namely, that the statements commonly
made, that all molluscous animals perforate stone by means of an acid,
is not the fact with regard to _Pholades_ and _Tarets_. He observes,
that although a workman would be amazed on hearing a proposition to
pierce calcareous stone with the shell of a _Pholas_, yet he himself
has done it, and holds the success to be a proof that the animal can
do the same. The idea of the acid might be accepted, while it was
proved that the creatures were to be found only in limestone; but now
that he has sent to the Academie specimens of gneiss and mica schist,
containing pholades, on which the acid has no effect, he conceives
that they must have entered by boring. They have also been found in
porphyry--a fact of which Brongniart said, many years ago, that nature
had concealed the explanation, and we must wait for a solution.
Whether M. Cailliaud's solution be the true one or not, is a point