The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-11-14
POPULAR SCIENCE.
GIeanIngs from the World of Discovery
and Invention.

and Invention.
The popular fallacy that house
plants poison the air of a room by the
exhalation of carbonic acid during the
% night, has been demonstrated by recent
experiments of Prof. Kedzie of the
Michigan agricultural college. To make
as conclusive a test as possible, instead
of taking the air from a room contain
ing a few plants only, the professor
gathered it from the college green
house, where more than 5000 plants
were growing. The room had been
closed for more than twelve hours and
if the plants exhaled carbonic acid to an
injurious extent, the analysis of air
from such a room would certainly dis
close this fact. Three specimens of
this imprisoned air were gathered
shortly before sunrise, from different
parts of the room, the analysis of which
gave Al, 400, 400 parts of carbonic
acid In 10000 of air, or an average of
4.03 in 10000 while the outdoor air
continued parts in 10, OOO thus prov
ing that the air in the greenhouse was
better than "pure country air"
THE BEES AS ARCHITECTS. -Man is
obliged to use all sorts of engines for
measurement-angl rules, plumb
lines-to produce his buildings and to
guide his hand &; the bee executes her
work Immediately from her mind, with
out instruments or tools of any kind.
"She has successfully solved problem
in higher mathematics, which the dis
covery of the differential calculus, a
century and half ago, alone enables us
to solve at all without the greatest diff
Guilty" "The inclination of the planes
of the cells is always Just, so that, if
the surfaces on which she works are I'M
equal, still the axis running through it
is in the true direction, and the junction
of the two axes forms the angle of 60
degrees as accurately as if there were
none. The manner in which she
adapts her work to the requirements of
the moment and the place is marvellous.
In order to test their ingenuity, Huber
glazed the interior of a hive, with the
exception of certain bits of wood fas-
tened on the sides. The bees cannot
make their work adhere to glass. and
they began to build horizontally from
side to side +; he interposed other plates
of glass in different directions, and thew
curved their combs in the stranpest
shapes, In order to make them reach the
wooden supports He saws that this
proceeding denoted more than an in
stlnct, as glass was not a substance
against which bees could be warned bv
nature, and that they changed the di-
rectIOn of the work before reaching the
glass, at the distance precisely suitable
for making the necessary turns-enlarg-
ing the cells on the OUTER side greatly.
and on the inner side diminishing then
prOpOrtiOnately. AS the different in
sects were working on the different
sides, there must have been some means
of communicating the proportion to be
observed while the bottom being COM
mon to both sets of cells, the difficulty
of thus regularly varying their dimen-
slOns must have been great indeed.
Scientific american.
The FORMULATION OF FLOWERS BY
INSECTS. the numerous dis
coveries with which vegetable physio-
lOgy has of late been enriched, none is
more interesting or more curious than
the part taken by insects in the develop
ment of flowers. Some flowers seem to
appeal to the insect to enter their Cpen
leaves by exhibiting the brightest colors.
and most beautiful and varied forms,
beside secreting quantities of the nectar
upon which their visitor subsists. No
thing can be more wonderful than the
thousands of different shapes of corolla
of stamens, and of pistils: and vet all
are arranged so as not only to cover the
insect, In spite of himself, with pollen.
but, at the same time, to separate COM
pletely the pollen and stigma of the
same flower. Often the mechanical dis
position of the various parts of the
blossom and their play at the moment
OF the entrance of the intruder is ex-
tremely complicated, as Darwin has de-
mOnstrated in the case of many of the
orchldaceae +; but there are other flow
ers of which the construction is easily
understood and which are equally in
genlOus and surprising. The insect
alights upon the lower lip of the corolIa.
and, to reach the hidden nectar, tries to
penetrate the tube. But this it cannot
do without pushing before it the short
branches of the two levers formed by
the cOnnectIves. At the same time the
arched upper parts advance and en-
brace the body of the bee, applying the
open anthers to its abdomen so that the
insect energies covered with the fine
pollen, As long as it seeks the nectar
of flowers of the same age as that lust
left, of which the styles are still very
short, the stigmas can receive but little
pollen; but when the bee attempts to
enter an older blossom the elongated
stigma grazes along its back, rubs off
the pollen, and thus becomes fecunda-
ted. Since the pollen of the SALIVA is
deposited on the back of the insect, it
is evident that little can be given to
flower of another species, the construc-
ton of which requires the placing of
the substance upon the head or trunk.
While, whatever may be the flowers
which the bee visits before entering
another SALIVA, the pollen with which
1t is charged is not rubbed off or wasted,
as 1t remains intact until a proper bios
som is entered.-Scientifc american.