Batavian Society of
Rotterdam have just issued an elaborate illustrated Report on the best
method of improving permanently the estuary of Goedereede--a question
of considerable moment to the merchants of Rotterdam. The French
government have had a new fount of Ethiopic types cast, to enable M.
d'Abbadie to prepare a catalogue of African manuscripts. And our
Secretary of State for the Home Department has presented various
libraries and public institutions with two portly folios, entitled
_Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniae, or the Establishments of Ireland,
from the Nineteenth of King Stephen to the Seventh of George IV._,
which we may accept as an addition to the _Memorials of History_,
commenced two or three years since. Then, as a private enterprise, we
have a scheme for a new edition of Shakspeare, in twenty volumes
folio, which is to be completed in six years, with all that can be
required in the way of illustration, be it archaeological,
philological, historical, or exegetical. Mr Halliwell is to be the
editor; and it is said that not more than 150 copies will be printed.
Another birth for the spirit of the dust that lies in the tomb at
Stratford.

Research is as active as ever in France. M. Bernard, who is well known
as a physiologist and anatomist, after a careful study of the salivary
glands, finds that each of the three, common to nearly all animals,
furnishes a different secretion. The saliva from the sublingual gland
is viscous and sticky, fit to moisten the surface of substances, but
not to penetrate them, giving them a coat which facilitates their
being swallowed. That from the parotid gland, on the contrary, is thin
and watery, easily penetrates substances taken into the mouth, and
thereby favours their assimilation; while the saliva from the
submaxillary gland is of a nature between these two. These facts were
verified by soaking portions of the membrane in water, as well as by
experiments on the living subject; the liquid in which they were
soaked presented the same character as that of the secretions.

The varying of the parotid secretion with the nature of the food
taken, is considered by M. Bernard to be a proof that this secretion
is especially intended to favour mastication. A horse kept on
perfectly dry food gives out a far greater quantity than when the food
is moistened. Experiments on the dog and rabbit supplied similar
results; and, extraordinary as it may appear, the gland will secrete
sal