Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

relied upon for potashes, and of recent years the tremendous demands upon the German fields have led to a renewed search for new sources of these salts.

Our western coasts, within the ten fathom line, have immense fields of rank fuci or kelp which contain large percentages of potassium salts, one variety yielding nearly half its dry weight of pure potassium chloride. These plants though growing in the midst of great quantities of sodium salts do not assimilate them, but absorb and store up great quantities of potassium salts.

The first step of the process which it is proposed shall be used for extracting these salts, consists of drying the great coarse weeds on the sunny, rainless beeches of San Diego Bay. The kelp will then be cut up into small pieces and dusted with lime to ensure the speedy

decomposition of nitrogenous constituents, and distilled and charred in vats with a resulting distillation which will separate the volatile portions.

The non-volatile residue in the heating chambers consists chiefly of alkaline chlorides intimately mixed with the carbon resulting from the decomposition of organic parts of the weeds. This is coarsely ground, packed in percolators, and the soluble portions removed by lixiviation with water The resulting solution should be colorless and contain almost exclusively alkaline salts. Evaporation gives the "muriate of potash" of

commerce.

Iodine, caesium, dubidium, and bromine are possible by-products from the reduction of kelp, and with the constantly widening field of industrial chemistry there is no lack of markets for such

wares.

War Against the Silent Death

By W. G. Fitz-Gerald

AST year the number of men, women and children who met a terrible death in India from the bite of poisonous snakes amounted to 25.837. Besides this there were about 4,500 killed by wild animals chiefly tigers; to say nothing about 66,000 cattle. Every conceivable measure has been taken to mitigate this appalling annual destruction, but as statistics show, with little avail.

The venomous snakes of India most destructive of life may be placed in the following order: First of all comes the deadly cobra, responsible for nearly ninetenths of the fatalities; and then the krait, kuppur, Russell's viper, the hamadryas, and Raj-samp. The water-snakes kill a good many, as we shall see, but they are comparatively rare. A regular organ

ized warfare is waged upon India's myriads of reptiles, and in each district a regular head-tax is paid upon each cobra and other snake killed.

Last year the number of snakes destroyed was 762,221, for which rewards amounting to nearly 57,000 rupees were paid. The greatest destruction to life. appears to have been in Bengal, where 11,131 people were killed, and nearly 1,000 cattle. In this Province alone 55,054 poisonous snakes were destroyed.

The officials charged with this curious. work were scattered over the whole vast area, from the Himalayas to Southern Madras, including Bombay Provinces; the North West Provinces, and Oudh; the Punjab, Central Provinces, Burma, Assam, Hyderabad, and others.

The "war" is waged by rousing India's millions from their apathy, giving

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

them minute descriptions of the more poisonous varieties of snake, and inciting them to go out into the jungle and kill with the certainty that their labor will not only reduce the number of tragedies, but also bring a little money to them.

That great work the "Thanatophidia" of India tells the villagers how to distinguish the venomous from the harmless

DANCING TO THE PIPE.

snakes, thus rendering it easy to avoid or destroy them. The head-money varies from two annas to ten annas, according to the species. Unfortunately the offering of this snake money has in many cases led to the breeding of snakes on regular organized "farms." A very sharp lookout, however, is kept upon this nefarious industry by local migistrates.

Snakes are pretty generally distributed over the globe, but tropical countries are most richly supplied; the hotter the country, the more venomous the snakes.

Some of them, like the cobra, lay eggs, while the hydrophidae bring forth their young alive. The reptiles are most prolific, and no sooner is one deadly cobra killed than another deposits twenty or thirty white leathery eggs in some warm place to be hatched by natural heat.

They will eat anything from their own species to vegetables. As to their appearance and method of life, bewildering differences make the work of hunting and killing them most difficult. The tree and grass snakes are colored exactly like the vegetation they frequent; and innocent and poisonous forms are found among them. There are burrowing snakes, and reptiles that frequent both fresh and salt water. Curiously enough, the latter are all venomous, while fresh-water snakes are quite harmless. Poisonous varieties have fewer teeth than the others, and are provided with a long tubular poison-fang, actuated by mechanism of exquisite delicacy. There is a special muscular arrangement for opening and closing the mouth and at the same time compressing the poison-gland, thereby injecting the venom through the tubular fang into the body of the victim.

The poison glands are all shapes and sizes. In the callophis they are elongated, whilst in the cobra they are of the size and shape of an almond. The virus is a transparent slightly viscid fluid, not unlike glycerine, a faint yellow in color. When dry it forms a crystal substance like gum arabic.

Some of the natives of India make the cobras secrete their virus in quantities by making a fresh vigorous snake bite a leaf stretched across a mussel shell.

[graphic]

After several bites the reptile is comparatively harmless, but soon becomes dangerous again.

The chemistry of snake poison has been investigated for centuries-in this country by Dr. Weir Mitchell and Dr. Reichert. The French scientist, Gautier, thought he had discovered a ptomaine in the cobra's venom, but in reality there is very little known about the matter. Dr. A. Calmette, Director of the Pasteur Institute at Lille, declares he has produced an anti-toxin which is absolutely effective. Both Dr. Calmette and his colleagues of the Paris Museum of Natural History, have investigated for years the effects of the cobra's poison and they now claim that by vaccination with the new serum they can make rabbits absolutely immune and can transmit this immunity from the blood of animals so inoculated.

Similar experiments have been made by Professor Behring in Germany, and Dr. Roux in France. By the way, even in fair, pastoral France 60 or 70 people are killed every year by the vipers. At the Pasteur Institute in Paris there are kept a number of horses and cattle, not to speak of thousands of guinea pigs, rabbits, fowls, mice, and other birds and animals, upon all of which important experiments are conducted with a view to lessening the frightful mortality in India.

differs in intensity and character according to the genera or species, but also varies enormously in the same individual under various conditions of temperature, climate, health, and state of vigor or exhaustion at the time of the bite. As a poison it is intensely virulent, and may neither be sucked from a bite nor swallowed with impunity.

[graphic]

TREE SACRED TO THE COBRA, WHICH THE HINDUS VENERATE.

Dr. Weir Mitchell's experiments showed that ferric chloride, bromide and iodine destroyed crotaline venom; while permanganate of potassium had great power to destroy that of the cobra di Capello.

The activity of snake virus not only

The queer thing is that a snake cannot poison itself nor one of its own species. Nor can it do serious injury to another genus of venomous snakes, whilst it kills quickly the innocent varieties.

The poison kills by extinguishing in some way the sources of nerve energy. The chief effect is upon the respiratory apparatus, and death occurs by asphyxia. A cobra bite produces general and almost instant paralysis, and death is attended. with violent convulsions. Viperine poison causes early convulsions, but gives a more

lingering death. The local effects of the bite are partial paralysis of the bitten part; pain, swelling, hemorrhage, and inflammation.

No observers have better opportunities of recording data than the Government Surgeons of India; and in sixtyfive given cases of snake bite recorded by them it appeared that the most fatal periods are between two and three hours. Quite twenty-five per cent of the total deaths take place between one and three hours after the bite; nearly ninetyfive per cent of the wounds were in extremities; and success depends on preventing access to the circulation, and in removing the injured part immediately.

In what may be called pre-scientific days every known drug, and many quaint remedies besides, were tried as antidotes -ammonia, arsenic, quinine, strychnine, alcohol, various acids, snake poison, and bile, charred bones-these, and a hundred other "remedies" were forthcoming. The native Hindoos rely upon magic "snake stones," which certainly appear

to be efficacious in some cases. Their action is similar to that of the "madstones" used in hydrophobia.

The bite of a venomous snake in India is distinguished from any other by two punctures at a certain distance apart, with an absence of smaller punctures. This especially applies to the cobra, which is a nocturnal snake with curious ways. He will live for weeks and months in captivity without touching food or water, and swim readily. He can go up a tree in search of food. He is found everywhere in the Peninsula, even up to a height of 8,000 feet in the Himalayas. It is the most dreaded of all snakes, and is quite worshipped by the natives.

When about to strike it raises a third of its body, extends the hood, and with a loud hissing draws back its head. Next moment, like a lightning flash the head darts forward, and either scratches, seizes, or embeds the fangs.

If the fangs of a vigorous cobra be embedded in a large vein the victim will be dead within 30 minutes. As to the

[graphic]

A MAGISTRATE WHOSE DUTY IT IS TO OVERSEE THE DESTRUCTION OF POISONOUS SERPENTS

[merged small][ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »