Dr. S. Wood of Cincinnati states, that by means of a small double convex lens of short focus held near the eye,--that organ looking through it at a candle twelve or fifteen feet distant,--there will be perceived a large luminous disc, covered with dark and light spots and dark streaks, which, after a momentary confusion, will settle down into an unchanging picture, which picture is composed of the organs or internal parts of the eye. The eye is thus enabled to view its own internal organisation, to have a beautiful exhibition of the vessels of the cornea, of the distribution of the lachrymas secretions in the act of winking, and to see into the nature and cause of _muscæ volitantes_. NATURE OF THE CANDLE-FLAME. M. Volger has subjected this Flame to a new analysis. He finds that the so-called _flame-bud_, a globular blue flaminule, is first produced at the summit of the wick: this is the result of the combustion of carbonic oxide, hydrogen, and carbon, and is surrounded by a reddish-violet halo, the _veil_. The increased heat now gives rise to the actual flame, which shoots forth from the expanding bud, and is then surrounded at its inferior portion only by the latter. The interior consists of a dark gaseous cone, containing the immediate products of the decomposition of the fatty acids, and surrounded by another dark hollow cone, the _inner cap_. Here we already meet with carbon and hydrogen, which have resulted from the process of decomposition; and we distinguish this cone from the inner one by its yielding soot. The _external cap_ constitutes the most luminous portion of the flame, in which the hydrogen is consumed and the carbon rendered incandescent. The surrounding portion is but slightly luminous, deposits no soot, and in it the carbon and hydrogen are consumed.--_Liebig’s Annual Report._ HOW SOON A CORPSE DECAYS. Mr. Lewis, of the General Board of Health, from his examination of the contents of nearly 100 coffins in the vaults and catacombs of London churches, concludes that the complete decomposition of a corpse, and its resolution into its ultimate elements, takes place in a leaden coffin with extreme slowness. In a wooden coffin the remains, with the exception of the bones, vanish in from two to five years. This period depends upon the quality of the wood, and the free access of air to the coffins. But in leaden coffins, 50, 60, 80, and even 100 years are required to accomplish this. “I have opened,” says Mr. Lewis, “a coffin in which the corpse had been placed for nearly a century; and the ammoniacal gas formed dense white fumes when brought in contact with hydrochloric-acid gas, and was so powerful that the head could not remain in it for more than a few seconds at a time.” To render the human body perfectly inert after death, it should be placed in a light wooden coffin, in a pervious soil, from five to eight feet deep. MUSKET-BALLS FOUND IN IVORY.