A controversy has recently taken place in Paris, relative to the efficacy of certain chemical means of ascertaining whether dried spots or stains of matter suspected to be blood, are or were blood, or not. M. Orfila gives various chemical characters of blood under such circumstances, which he thinks sufficient to enable an accurate discrimination. This opinion is opposed by M. Raspail, who states, that all the indications supposed to belong to true blood, may be obtained from, linen rags, dipped, not into blood, but into a mixture of white of egg and infusion of madder, and that, therefore, the indications are injurious rather than useful. _Cedars of Lebanon_. Mr. Wolff, the missionary, counted on Mount Lebanus, thirteen large and ancient cedars, besides the numerous small ones, in the whole 387 trees. The largest of these trees was about 15 feet high, not one-third of the height of hundreds of English cedars; for instance, those at Whitton, Pain's Hill, Caenwood, and Juniper Hall, near Dorking. _Leeches_. In the _Medical Repository_, a case is quoted, where some leeches, which had been employed first on a syphylitic patient and afterwards on an infant, communicated the disease to the latter. _Stinging Flies_. There is a fly which exteriorly much resembles the house-fly, and which is often very troublesome about this time; this is called the stinging fly, one of the greatest plagues to cattle, as well as to persons wearing thin stockings. _Mont Blanc_. The height of Mont Blanc and of the Lake of Geneva has lately been carefully ascertained by M. Roger, an officer of engineers in the service of the Swiss Confederation. The summit of the mountain appears to be 4,435 metres, or 14,542 English feet above the Lake of Geneva, and the surface of the Lake 367 metres, or 1,233 English feet above the sea. The mountain is, therefore, 15,775 feet above the level of the sea. _Bird Catching_. The golden-crested wren may be taken by striking the bough upon which it is sitting, sharply, with a stone or stick. The timid bird immediately drops to the ground, and generally dead. As their skins are tender, those who want them for stuffing will find this preferable to using the gun.--_Mag. Nat. Hist._ _Shower of Herrings in Ross-shire_.