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Cochineal. • Cochineal, as found in trade, is the dried body of the female cochineal in sect, which lives on a species of cac tus. During life it is about the s’z3 of a small lady bug. Tt is rather long, compressed, equally broad all over, wingless, and marked behind with deep incisions and wrinkles. The cochineal insect has six feet, which nevertheless are only of use directly after birth. It fastens itself upon the plant by means of a trunk placed be tween the forefeet, and remains there till it dies. The sap of the plant pro vides this little animal with nourish ment. The male cochineal insects re semble the female only during the larva state. They change into the chrysalis, and soon come forth as small red flies. The female then lays some thousands of eggs, and becomes covered with a white powder. She protects the eggs under her body, and hatches them, so to speak, in this way. When the young insect appears the mother dies. The young are now in the larva state and the sex eannot be discerned. They lose their skin sev eral times, and the female then fixes herself on the plant. The males, after passing through the pupa state, are winged. Their whole period of life is from two to three months. The cochineal insects are gathered shortly before they lay eggs, and they are then very rich in coloring matter. Only sufficient eggs are laid as may serve to reproduce the insect. The dead fe males are also collected. They are killed with hot water or steam, and dried in the sun, in ovens, or on plates. They have a brown, red, white, or black color, and lose in the drying two-thirds of their weight. After drying the cochineal is sieved About 70,000 insects go to make a pound of cochineal. Robert Buchanan on Rossetti. Your reviewer insinuates (there is no mistaking his innuendo) that a cer tain character in my story is a shadow- picture of the late Mr. Dante Rossetti. To show the injustice of this supposi tion, i will simply ask your readers to compare the lineaments of my Blanco Serena, a society-hunting, wordly- minded, insincere, but good-humored, fashionable painter with the literary image of Mr. Rossetti,a solitude-loving, unworldly, thoroughly sincere and earnest, if sometimes saturnine, man of genius, in revolt against society. The blundering of windmill-criticism could surely go no further. I wish to have no mistake on this, to me, very solemn matter. What I wrote of Mr. Rossetti, ten years ago, stands. What I wrote of Mr. Ro3setti in the inscrip tion of ‘ God and the Man” also stands. Time br’nps about its re venges. Gan the least acute obsei ver of literature have failed to notice that the so-called fleshly school, in propor tion as it hes grown saner, purer, and more truly impassioned in the cause of humanity, has lost its hold upon the so-called 'fleshly public—even on the dapper master-millers and miller’s men of the journals of nepotism and malignity? Certain of our critics said to certain of our poets: “Go that way; there lies the short cut to immortality!” But the poets, after going a few paces, paused, recognizing, as only true poets can recognize, the easy descent to Acheron. How Btrange it would be, after all, if we, the so-called Pharisees of ten years ago, should find ourselves called upon, in the end, to defend these very poets against their own critics, against society, against the world! Stranger things have hap pened. Ishmael, after all, is close akin to Esau; and I can say for my own part that not even the dread of the brutal, blundering windmills would prevent me from championing Esau, if ever I should And the smooth hands of Jacob raised to destroy him. A Precious Stone Found in Georgia. Near Norcross lhere resides an old German geologist who loves to live among the peculiar specimens of min eral and vegetable matter which he has unearthed and housed. He is an elderly gentleman of little sociability, but of great mental acquirements. His physical endurance is simply astonish ing. For days at a time he wanders over the hills and through the dales near his home, collecting rocks and stones, limbs and roots, the properties and qualities of which are unknown to all but himself. The room in which his collection is is wonderful. In one receptacle are arranged a number of stones whose bright rays remind the observer of diamonds. In the centre of this long room there rests a stone half the size of a hen’s egg, which was picked up by the owner months and months ago. It was found by its owner one rainy afternoon. For nearly a week he had been on a tramp through the hills ai d dales near his home, and, weary with his ceaseless toil, he was wending his way home, when his eyes fell upon something from which the rays of the sun were scattered in a thousand directions. With little thought of what he was doing, the geologist stooped down and picked up the object. It was nearly half the size of a hen’s egg, and of an irregular shape. It was covered in many places with thick, heavy clay, which was removed with great care. It was found to be exceedingly hard, and whenever struck with a hard sub stance gave forth but little sound. It was almost colorless with now and then a tinge of green. Its form was that of an octahedron, but some of the faces or sides were inclined to be con vex, while the edges were curved. It was subjected to acids and alkalies without experiencing any perceptible change. Some friends induced him to place it on the market, and only a day or two ago he received a letter from a diamond dealer in New York offering him $46,000 for it. Moire this season very seldom forms the whole of a costume. It is only used in combination with other mate rials, such as satin, foulard, taffetas, lawns, silk or cashmere. It quite fre quently forms the skirt or bodice alone, the other portions of the toilet being of a contrasting material, or It Is fre quently employed for lacings, collar, stub, pelerine, cuffs, and vest, in the formation of a new oostume or the renovation of one of a past season. Fichus of the finest white linen, sim- nly hem-stitoned around the edges are worn over morulug toilets of foulard, muslin, < ashmere, or vigogffe, by the few women wuo»e complexions can l>ear the test of so severe a style of neck-dressing. A Triumphant Demonstration. The paradox that the hotter tbe city the easier it may be cooled, insisted upon by Prof Gamgee for some time past, stands explained : The uniform success of every attempt made with the clrclair in New Orleans, since the middle of May, inductd the Times- Democrat to 1 isk a bold and somewhat costly experiment. As is usual, in newspaper offices, tbe upper stories are devoted to compositors, and the passer by often pities the semi nude men, iu midsummer, sweltering to prepare the wet sheet of fresh news for the break fast table. Bloodheat, viz.: 9S degrees, with a suffocating odor due to organic refuse thrown off by the perspiring compositors are matters of nightly ob servation. Tbe men crave for relief, and who would deny it them it within the meaus of employers ? The ablest engineers and sanitarians have pronounced against the possi bility of cooliDg and ventilating dwell ings economically. Mr. Gamgee has successfully labored to obviate this d iflculty, and fortunately decided to test his powers where there could be no doubt as to long continued high temperatures and an urgent demand for perfect systems of ventilation. The principle of his system is the movement and cooling of immense volumes of air by resorting only to the use of water pumps and tubes. The Blake pump, capable of blowing the 77mes Democrat building full of air inc ssantly, moves about 40 gallons of water per minute, and the duty it per formed yesterday for the comfort of our compositors was calculated by Mr. Burchard Thoens as not exceed ing 0 4 Indicated horse-power. This and the evaporation of a few gallons of water is the sum. total ot our run ning expenses, and what is the result? A scanty water supply fortunately compelled Mr. Gamgee to use a com mon barrel as a reservoir and with the contents of the various water pipes, about 60 gallons of water are now in constant circuit, moving about 150 000 cubic feet of air per. hour. This water, lifted in a tube of one and a half inches diameter, returns to the barrel by one somewhat larger, and there is a perceptilde hourly diminu tion in its volume, for it is raised to a sprinkler in tbe top of a 24 foot tube, about 2 feet 6 inches in diameter, aud such is the impetus communicated t< the air la this tube that a mean velocity of nearly six miles an hour is shown in the opening whioh dischar ges air into one of the composing rooms. In the roof of this chamber are 85 openings, six inohes by six inches square, and so carefully have the calculations been made that there is an uniform upper current of cold air at the rate of two miles an hour, or a little over, forcing the foul air and smoke from the lamps up through the skylights and windows. The distri bution and the cooling L absolutely uniform. Starting with Mississippi water from the hydrant at 94 degrees Fah renheit, in 15 minutes the whole circuit was down to 76 degrees; in 15 more to 75 degrees, in another 15 to 74 degrees, and two hours after start ing to 72 degrees, or about the indica tion of a well bulb thermometer hang ing in the rooms of the Auxiliary Sanitary Association. The lower composing room stood at 86 degrees Fahrenheit at 5 p. m. It is not much occupied, but was not closed for an hour. It- then fell to 80 degrees, and receding from the aperture of five feet square area, tarough which the cold air entered at 76 degrees, the agreeable and uniform dispersion of the impelled pure atmosphere, was most strikingly perceptible. A verita blep’emon of distention of the room by air is evidenced by the uniform discharge through the roof openings, j Resistance by friction has been studi ouely avoided. The area of the venti lated space is progressively enlarged, and every printer acknowledged with gratitude last night that while pro tected from any dangerous and un pleasant draught, each man felt him self in a column of fresh air. Doubters have not been few, and so novel an experiment, attended at once by so much success, cannot fail to attract the widest attention. There is nothing of the recondite nature and mystery in this important invention which led the publio to startle at the phonograph, the telephone or the elec trie light. Nevertheless the exquisite simplicity of Prof. Gamgee’s system of hydraulic ventilation, while reminding us of Columbus and the egg, undoubt edly insures the prompt and widest adoption of a means of relief which implies comfort and prolonged life to millions in hot cities and warm cli- ma1 es. Mr. Gamgee has coined an English compound word for his apparatus. He calls it a circlalr, It maintains air in a constant circle, drawing it into inclosed spaces, discharging it and purifying or cooling it at will. With warm water it actually heats the pure air which it * ejects from its capaci< us throat. It swallows up the noxious gases of foul vault or isolates the air of a sick chamber and all that remained to be dene was to show that a crowded and heated room, which in our case held 28 men and 82 oil lamps, could be rendered habitable and heal thy at small cost. This has undoubt edly been accomplished, and from this time onwards is can no longer be said that sanitary engineering fails to temper or to distribute cheaply the few thousand cubic feet of air which every man should be supplied with in his home, in his office or the work shop. Itcmical. Alexandria had twelve newspapers. Black smallpox is raging with great virulence in the Mexican cities of Muzatlan, Hermoslllo and Guayamas. Martin Crook started to walk from Tucson to the Guneight mine, a dis tance of sixty-five miles. The weather was intensely hot; there is but one watering-place on the road, and Crook died of thirst before he reached it. The recent strike of the London cabmen has naturally led to various estimates of the daily earnings of metropolitan cabs. The lowest of these is about $48,000, and some authorities think that $60,000 would not be too large an estimate. Ari,bi Pacha recently gave orders to have the life of Napoleon I. translated into Arabic, saying to his friends: “Napoleon is my model, I will do what he did—nay, I will do more, I will found an Arabian Empire.” He has also tried to play the role of a prophet by frequently quoting the Koran and professing to have familiar interviews with the ghost of Maho met. Japan is promised a constitutional form of government at the end of eight years. By way of preparation for that event, the Japanese Minister at Berlin has been instructed to make a careful study of the Prussian system of govern ment, which is likely to be the one chosen as a model. Rochefort, Mephistophels Rochefort, as Dumas calls him, not only is grow ing fat and sleek, not only is an assiduous attendant at the races, always in company with some fair companion, but is becoming a landed proprietor, just like MM. Grevy and Gambetta. M. Gambettais constantly buying. Recently he has become the possessor of the whole of BaJ zac’s prop erty at Ville d’Avray, Les Jardins, part of which he ha? owned for some years past. Some of the properties of hydro cyanic acid have been tested by M. Brame. Bodies of animals he had poisoned with it resisted decay very well for a whole year, although the temperature was as high sometimes as 38° centigrade. Preserved in closed vessels they lose the peculiar bitter almond or peach-blossom odor of the acid, and acquire that of the formate of ammonia found iu the serous liquid. To embalm with the acid a little of some substance which absorbs water while hardening should be subse quently introduced. The Situation in Egypt. Food for Merriment. The flve-cent counter is the Saint Nickel us of the poor. How to prepare a hot bed—put cay enne pepper between the sheets. The man who stole a pair of socks only took them < ff to put them on. On a Cropped Maiden. She’s rosy,bright, and fair And outs her curly hair Like a mop. But I love her, that I do, From her dainty little shoe To her cropl How studious she looks, And she’s worklag at her books — Malden sage. But sometimes there will unfurl A naughty little curl O’er the page. Then the rosy head she shakes Which matters only makes Rather worse; For the ourly little pate Becomes Instead ol straight, The reverse. I wonder how a fay, [f she wore her hair Ihls way, Would appear t Though I'm certain that to me No other bead oould be Hall so dear. But she says I musn't laugh, And “will not stand’’ my chaff— She’s too big: “She will cut oft her all her balr,’’ And, “if don’t take oare, Wear a wig " ■ ■ -» “Melinda, I don’t like the looks of that lover of yours.” “Why, $apa, dear?” “I don’t think he’s possesseo of staying qualities.” “Papa, then his looks deot lve you awfully. He's superabundantly biased with staying qualities. Why,he’d stay to breakfast if I’d let him.” From Egypt the news is meagre and unsatisfactory, and until the arrival of additional troops from England the present status of the contending forces is not likely to be seriously distuibed. Arab! Pacha is strongly intrenched at a safe distance from Alexandria, in a state of blissful indifference as to his li-missal by the Khedive. The Porte iti 11 maintains its attitude of g rave un concern, and temporizes with Lord Dufferin on the question of sending troops to Ejjypt with most non-coin- rnllal adroitness. Meanwhile the En- •opeans who are forced to remain in Cairo and adjacent towns are occupy ing a most precarious position, expose 1 le the attacks of marauding Arabs and in daily danger of massacre. Reports, apparently well founded, of the procla mation of a holy war in Cairo will not tend to allay the solicitude with which the Christian world watches the Egyptian situation ; for a holy war in Egypt meaus extermination to its Eu ropean population. The stoutest de fence, the most stubborn resistance, is vain against the whirlwind of religious fervor, the blind zeal to destroy, with the Arab is imbued by the announce ment of a holy war. Since the days of Harouu the Great there has been but one holy war pro claimed, aud that against the invad iug Crusaders. Banded together to resist the iLfldel, the followers of Is lamlsrn waged unceasing aud bloody strife with the despoilers of their sa cred cities who came iu the name of a strange God. With the gradual disso lution of the powerful confederacy which beat back the Crusaders there was au end of religious wars, and the banner of Islam, that is unfurled to call the Moslem to armB for the faith, now rots with the Prophet’s dress and other sacred relics iu the Hall of the Noble Vestments at Constautinople. When, iu 1877, the Sultan was hard reseed by Russia, and tbe gleaming Muscovite bayonets flashed from the heights ove/looking the B >sphorus, i he threat to un f url the sacred stand ard aroused only scorn and nuookiug laughter from the viotoilous Russians, und the experiment was spoken of no more, Fur all the purposes of the Porte, the rallying cry that in 1/68 aroused the Turks to a ferocious and indiscriminate massacre of Curistiano is now But the babble of an unknown tongue. But in Egypt the fanatical spirit of felam still slumbers in the souls of fierce Arabs whose only lesson has been to reverence the Prophet and hate the infidel. With a bigoted Moa- em sternly facing the foreign troops at Alexandria, with every Sheikh and holy man and scholar lending aid to the movement to repel the invaders, but little incentive will be required to set the blood of Egyptian Bedouins seething through their veins in re sponse to a call for the extermination •:>f the Franks. Once the demon of destruction is aroused there may be a repetition at Cairo of the scenes of 1768 at Constantinople, when Christiana who had rented windows in Moslem houses from which to witness the up lifting of the holy standard were pushed out on the street by their hosts and murdered by the mob. The dan ger may not be near at hand, but a desperate man like Arabi would not hesitate to bring it down on the heads of foreigners in Egypt if thereby he might secure the recognition vouch safed only to the violent. The Medicinal Value of Vege tables, A celebrated cook book discusses the medicinal value of vegetables, as fol lows : “Asparagus is a strong diuretie, and forms part of the cure for rheumatic patients at such health resorts as Aix- . les Bains. Sorrel is cooling, and forms the staple of that sovpe eux herbeg which a French lady will order for herself after a long and tiring journey. Carrots, as containing a quantity of sugar, are avoided by some people, while others complain of them as in digestible. With regard to the latter accusation,^ it may be remarked, in passing, that it is the yellow core of the carrot that is difficult of digestion —the outer, a red layer, is tender enough. In Savoy, the peasants have recourse to an infusi in of carrots ao A specific for j aundice. “The large, sweet onion is very rioh in those alkaline elements which coun teract the poison of rheumatic gout. If slowly stewed in weak broth, aud eaten with a little Nepaul pepper, it will be found to be an admirable arti cle of diet for patients of studious and sedentary habits. The stalks of cauli flower have the same sort of value, only too often the stalk of a cauliflower is so ill-boiled and unpalatable that few persons would thank you for pro* posing to them to make part of their meal consist of so uninviting an ai> tide. Turnip*, in the same way, are often thought to be indigestible, and better suited for cows and sheep than for delicate people ; but heq^ the fault lies with the cook quite as much as with the root. Tbe cook boils the tur nip badly, and then pours some butter over it, aud the eater of such a dish is sure to be the worse for it. Try a bet ter way. What shall be said about our lettuces ? The plant has a slight narcotic action, of which a French old woman, like a French doctor, well knows the value, and when properly cooked it is really very easy of diges tion.”—Medical Record. The Stinging Tree. The “stinging tree” of Queensland is k luxurious shrub, pleasing to the eye but dangerous to the touch. It grows from two or three inches to ten or fifteen feet In height, and emits a disagreeable odor. Bays a traveller : Sometimes while shooting turkeys in the scrubs, I have entirely forgotten’ the stinging tree till I was warned of its close proximity by it3 smell, and have often found myself in a little for est of them. I was only once stung, And that very lightly. Its effects are curious ; it leaves no mark, but the pain is maddening ; and for months afterward the part when touched is tender in rainy weather, or when it gets wet in washing, eto. I have seen a man who treats ordinary pain Hgbtly roll on the ground in agony after being stung,and I have known a horse eo completely mad after getting into a grove of the trees that he rushed open- mouthed at every; ne who approached him, and had to be shot. Dog«, when stung, will rush about \thiniug pite ously, biting pieces from the afUoled part. To stain a glass lamp chimney paint tbe glass with a solution of water- glass (sirups) stained with chroma Igrten and let it dry thoroughly bo ' fore using on the lamn.