Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1872-12-12
Scientific and Practical,

Scientific and Practical.
THE zinc mines OF New Jersey yielded
about 10000 tons of ore last year.
THE diamonds of Africa, according tc
Agassiz, were carried into their present
position by icebergs.
THE of zinc, for the manufacture Of
the so-called timed iron employed in
making domestic cooking utensils, is on
the increase in France. Articles oil
food cooked in such vessels are not only
unwholesome but also poisonous.
A LEADING litigation now upon the
law docket of London concerns patent
for air gas. The patent covers process
by which gas for both infammable and
heating purposes is made from the com
mon atmosphere. And it is said to be
cheaper, purer, and more brilliant than
the coal gas, and may be used for power
in the place of steam.
THERE is simple fact not recorded in
the scientific books, which will interest
frugal housewives. If they have any
clothes line, which they desire to cut in
two, they have OILY to suspend them
faulty from the posts and leave durin g
one rain storm. The process is simple,
and is thus explained: The rain vets,
the cord contracts, the posts are firm,
and the line " busts."
NOTHING is better established in the
domain of vital statistics than this, viz. /:
A very long body, with short legs, under
ordinary circumstances, indicates a
10 ger lease OF life than when the
lower limbs are long and the body
short. In large, long body, the vital
organs within are perfectly developed,
and act freely and regularly. In mar.
row chest and short trunk the func-
tons of respiration and digestion are
less perfectly accomplished
DARWIN has been snubbed by the
French Academy, which has rejected
his application Tor membership by a
large majority. The reasons for his re-
lection were solely scientific. NJ Mirque
said the author of the "Origin of Spe-
cles' had too far sacrificed science to
renown, and reason to imagination, to
deserve place in the first rank of
scientists. He had fallen too low"
said the sauant, ESPECIALLY in his last
work, and has 100 much belittled him.
self not to be made to expiate it,
Is THERE such bird as the American
partridge? is a question that has pro-
voked wide discussion among Kentucky
sportsmen. An old bird hunter takes
the writers on ornithology to task, and
says there is a general mlsnamlng of
American game. Our rabbit, he says, is
no longer a rabbit, but hare; our
pheasant Is a grouse; our buffalo is a
bison; our elk is d stag and our moose
is an elk, while the trout of the West
and North is bass, and the partridge
denominated quail even by gentlemen
sportsmen.
EXPERIMENTS were recently made in
Berlin to ascertain the effect of gas on
the roots of trees. The gas IRON the
street mains was delivered into the soil
IN which two lime-trees and a maple
were planted. After the lapse of two
months the roots were examined, and it
was found that all the fbers were dead.
The bark OF the strongest roots were de-
cayed, and even the woody part altered.
The gas was then cut Oft to see if the
trees would recover; one of the lines
produced sickly crop of leaves, but
the other trees showed no signs of life.
DR.. HALL1ER, well known by his re-
searches upon the fungi as supposed
agents or concomitants OF disease, states,
in recent paper, that measles and
scarlet fever are both occasioned by the
presence fungi in the blood, which can
be seen by the microscope in the form
OF minute cell-like pores, called micro
coccus. In the course of treatment of
persons affected with the above diseases.
care was taken to collect the perspira.
ton obtained from the patients under
these circumstances, and which, on
being submitted to DR.. HALTER for ex.
animation, was found to contain the
micrococcus in abundance