_Russian_ leather is
tanned in an infusion of birch bark, and is said to be afterwards mixed
with a quantity of birch tar, to give it that odour for which it is
peculiar, which renders it valuable for book-binding, on account of
preventing it from being attacked by insects. _Tawed_ leather, used for
gloves, is made by impregnating the skin with a liquor containing alum
and salt, and afterwards washed in a mixture of yolks of eggs and water;
the saline and animal matters combine, and give it that peculiar
softness, and such leather is afterwards coloured as may be required;
having been rolled over wooden rollers, in which are grooves, it is
called _Morocco_ leather. These are the principal varieties of leather
employed in this country.--_Brande's Lectures--Lancet_.
_Mites_.
An indefatigable naturalist has undertaken the very difficult task
of arranging the family of _acarides_, or mites; he divides them into
sixty-nine genera, the greater part of them new!
_Electro-Attraction of Leaves_.
The results of a French experimentalist have lately led him to conclude
that the leaves, hairs, and thorns of plants tend to maintain in them
the requisite proportion of electricity; and, by drawing off from the
atmosphere what is superabundant, they also act in some measure as
thunder-rods.
_Enormous Whale_.
The skeleton of a whale, 95 feet long by 18 feet high, has lately been
deposited in the Cabinet of Natural History at Ghent.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41