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460 Most of the valuations included sums varying from X5000 to £ 10,000 as the value of these materials. Ten per cent. for compulsory sale was added to the valua- tions of the land by Mr. Marrable, Mr. Tite, Mr. Clifton, Mr. Clark, and Mr. Currie, the latter adding also ten per cent. to the valuation of the buildings. The surveyors of the Company considered that as they had capitalized the ultimate annual value of the ground rents in ready money, no addition on account of compulsory sale should be made. The Hospital also claimed for the loss of their medical school, the costs they should incur for hiring houses for the patients during the erection of a new hospital, for contingencies, and the extra expense of constructing an hospital fitted with modern improvements, the sum of £ 60,000. On the part of the Company it was urged that the Hospital having forced the Company to buy the whole of their property, although they only required to put a bridge over a very small corner of a garden, and did not touch a building, they were not liable to pay compulsory price (vide the 92nd section of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act). But to obviate any possible injury to the Hospital patients, the Company offered to allow the Governors of the Hospital an undisturbed posses- sion of the whole of the buildings until they have purchased a new site, rebuilt the Hospital, and make it fit to be occupied. This offer was, however, distinctly rejected. Looking at the consummate ability of the counsel in this case, and their very large experience in similar business, there can be no doubt that every argument that could be suggested was placed before the umpire ; and after very able speeches from Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Bovill, each of which occupied four hours, this great claim was left to the decision of Mr. Stewart. It must be mentioned that, although not called by the learned counsel, we noticed that there were also present on the part of the Company, Mr. Jeremiah Mathews, of Egbaston House, Birmingham; Mr. R. Hall, surveyor to the Great Western Company; Mr. T. Marsh Nelson, of Whitehall; and Mr. Habershon, surveyor to the parish of St. Saviour. PARISIAN MEDICAL INTELLIGENCE. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) THE medical element did not predominate at the last meet- ing of the Academy of Sciences, an anti-neuralgic pomatum and a big mushroom being the total yield of that hebdomadal harvest. With regard to the unguent, M. Charrire, its author, who since 1855 has been mainly occupied in rubbing into all comeatable victims to tic and rheumatism a, compound formed of chloride of gold and sodium with cold cream, expresses himself very confidently, and states that during the six years in which he has used this preparation its success has been in- variable. The recipe for its composition is as follows: Chloride of gold and sodium, one scruple; galenic ointment, one ounce. For the growth of the gigantic mushroom Dr. Labourdette is responsible, and the following is the formula as detailed by himself : " In a cellar prepare a bed of rich garden mould, which cover with a foot of gravel and river-sand mixed; over the whole lay a coating of old brick rubbish, six inches in thickness; and, after sowing the mycelium, water with a solu- tion of nitrate of potash, in the proportion of two scruples of the salt for every square yard of surface." The result is simply prodigious, and would furnish a provincial paper with reserve- stock for a century. The Society of Acelimatation, fired with a commendable spirit of emulation, is now intent upon the introduction of some description of fowl worthy of broiling in company with a bunch of Dr. Labourdette’s fungi. The Zoological Garden now established by this Society in the Bois de Boulogne was, I understand, laid out by an English- man, Mr. Mitchell, whom an untimely death in 1859 prevented from completing his task. The arrangements he had contem- plated were, however, eventually carried out, and the esta- blishment was opened by the Emperor about a year ago. A capital of £ 40,000, raised by .S10 shares, was rapidly made up ; and fifty acres of land were shaved off an angle of the Bois de Boulogne by the municipality of Paris and conceded to the company. With a committee of administration, consisting of Prince Napoleon as president, Baron Ptothschild, MM. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Drouyn de 1’Huys, Dumeril, Jules Cloquet, Cosson, Moquin-Tandon, Rufz, Linden, and others high up in the financial as well as the scientific world, as working members, the success of the undertaking could hardly be doubtful, and accordingly the progress achieved within the few months which have elapsed since its commencement is incredible. The object of this garden not being that of simply exhibiting in a classified method various races of animals foreign to the soil- it not being, in fact, a mere living museum, a comparison can hardly be drawn between it and any ordinary zoological gar. den in another country. The purpose of the institution, as given in one of the clauses of the decree relating to its founda. tion, is " to acclimatize, multiply, and generalize all those animal or vegetable species which may seem by their utility or beauty to be worthy of interest," and to this programme it. is the intention of the committee to confine itself rigorously. Amongst the mammiferous animals in the collection we find the Shetland pony, the Javanese pony, zebras, deer of several kinds, mouflons, and finally sheep; and amongst the latter, one variety, apparently the Hottentot Venus of the ovine race, the Caramanian sheep, possessed of a tail weighing from thirty to forty pounds, fully twice as heavy as an ordinary brace of gigots. In the rabbit department is to be seen the metis, produced by the cross between rabbit and hare, so long con- sidered impossible, but now clearly demonstrated as existing by M. Lepol-Courtet. The flesh of this mule product is said to partake more of the rabbit than of the hare flavour, the " coarser clay" of the former having got the upper hand. Seve- ral species of kangaroo are being carefully nurtured for the benefit of the gastronomes of the next generation, as also divers unusually savoury examples of the goat tribe, whereof I wish posterity very much joy ! The rest of the Garden is mainly given up to pisciculture, the rearing of various kinds of silkworms, and to botanical experimentation, to detail which would take me beyond the limits of my normal tether. M. Noel Pascal, a practitioner in the district of the Lower Alps, last year addressed a memoir to the Academy of Medi. cine relative to the curative effects of the tincture of guaco in the treatment of wounds and ulcerated surfaces. The guaco plant (one of the Synanthereæ) is mentioned by Humboldt and Bonpland as being renowned in New Granada as an infallible antidote against snake-bites, the habit in that country being to rub the bruised plant over the bitten part. Since the receipt of M. Pascal’s first communication, several confirmations of the value of this tincture have been received, and more espe- cially from MM. Richard, Bauchet, Humbert, Melchin Robert, of Marseilles, and Diday, of Lyons; and its employment for dressing sores of a gangrenous and virulent nature has been attended by the most encouraging results. In a second com. munication to the Academy, M. Pascal, summing up all the positive results in favour of this preparation, asks for it a re- cognised place in the materia medica of the day. M. Barth, as reporter of a committee (in which M. Louis was included as a member) destined to frame an answer to the recent request of the Minister of State in connexion with Dr. Pietra Santa’s voyage, remarked that for the study of any par- ticular locality, with a view to ascertaining its influence upon chronic affections of the chest, two kinds of investigation were necessary- the one geographical, and the other pathological. The former should comprise a consideration of the physical con- ditions of the place, of its latitude, its extent of elevation along the sea level, its exposure whether to the pole or the equator, its temperature, prevalent winds, the quality and abundance of the water, and the produce of the country ; the flora should be studied, as well as any specimens of the animal kingdom pecu- iliar to the spot ; the quality of the food should also be exa- mined, and likewise the facilities or difficulties connected with its supply. The other class of investigations should bear more particularly upon the sanitary condition of the country in gene- ral, the absence or existence of endemic diseases, the frequency or rarity of epidemics, the nature and type of those occurring most habitually, and, lastly, the scarcity of scrofula and pul- monary phthisis amongst the natives of the soil. Some account should also be given of the average duration of life and of the most frequent causes of death, and the share taken therein by maladies affecting the respiratory organs. Such instructions as these, the committee judged, must form the basis of all re- searches having a sanitary purpose in view. M. Ruhmkorff has astonished the scientific world by piercing holes through glass plates two and three inches thick, by means of a spark from his large electric apparatus. The trace left by the spark on its passage through the vitreous substance is ’ marked by a white thread-like line, along which there is no indication of fusion. During the process M. Ruhmkorff had
