Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 | Page 2

and Marine Engineering in 1876.--Four Masted Ships.--New Bridges at and near New York city.--The Sutro Tunnel.--Independent Car Wheels.--Passenger Travel, New York city.
II.--TECHNOLOGY.--Design for Iron Stairway, and Iron Grilles, with 3 engravings.--The Process of Micro-photography used in the Army Medical Department.--Direct Positives for Enlarging.--A Monster Barometer.--Architectural Science, Carpentry Queries and Replies.--The Carpet Manufactures of Philadelphia. How the Centre Selvage is Formed, 3 figures.--Glass of the Ancients.--On the Preservation of Meat; a resume of the various methods now practiced.--California Pisciculture.--Savelle's System of Distillation, 2 engravings.--New Bromine Still, by W. ARVINE, 1 engraving.--The Phoenix Steam Brewery, New York.--French Cognac Distillation, 1 engraving.--Schwartz's Sugar Refinery, London. General description of the establishment.--Vienna Bread and Coffee.--How Pictorial Crystals are Produced and Exhibited.
III. LESSONS IN MECHANICAL DRAWING. New Series. By Professor C.W. MACCORD; with several engravings.
IV. ELECTRICITY, LIGHT, HEAT, SOUND, ETC.--Magnetic Action of Rotatory Conductors.--The Sensation of Sound.--Sympathetic Vibration of Pendulums.--Protection from Lightning.--Musical Tones, photograph of.
V. MEDICINE, HYGIENE, ETC.--On the Treatment of Typhoid Fevers. By ALFRED L. LOOMIS, M.D.--Hydrophobia Cured by Oxygen.--The efficacy of Lymph, by M. HILLER.--Success of Chloral Hydrate for Scalds and Burns.--Uses of Cyanide of Zinc.--Dr. Brown-Sequard on Nerve Disease.
VI. MISCELLANEOUS.--Geological Notes.--A Geological Congress.--The last Polar Expedition.--Old Men of Science.--Pre-glacial Men.--Post-glacial period, Esthonia.--Northern Pacific Formations.
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DATES AND THE DATE PALM.
Even those whose knowledge of the customs of the Orient extends no further than a recollection of the contents of that time-honored story book, the "Arabian Nights," are doubtless aware that, since time immemorial, the date has been the chief food staple of the desert-dwellers of the East. The "handful of dates and gourd of water" form the typical meal and daily sustenance of millions of human beings both in Arabia and in North Africa, and to this meager diet ethnologists have ascribed many of the peculiar characteristics of the people who live upon it. Buckle, who finds in the constant consumption of rice among the Hindoos a reason for the inclination to the prodigious and grotesque, the depression of spirits, and the weariness of life manifest in that nation, likewise considers that the morbid temperament of the Arab is a sequence of vegetarianism. He points out that rice contains an unusual amount of starch, namely, between 83 and 85 per cent; and that dates possess precisely the same nutritious substances as rice does, with the single difference that the starch is already converted into sugar. To live, therefore, on such food is not to satisfy hunger; and hunger, like all other cravings, even if partially satisfied, exercises control over the imagination. "This biological fact," says Peschel, "was and still is the origin of the rigid fastings prescribed by religions so widely different, which are made use of by Shamans in every quarter of the world when they wish to enter into communication with invisible powers." Peschel and Buckle, however, are at variance as to the influence of the date diet as affecting a race; and the former remarks that, "while no one will deny that the nature of the food reacts upon the mental powers of man, the temperament evoked by different sorts is different;" yet "we are still far from having ascertained anything in regard to the permanent effects of daily food, especially as the human stomach has, to a great degree, the power of accommodating itself to various food substances, so that with use