The Louisiana cotton-boll. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], Attakapas, La.) 1872-1883, 1874-02-25
POPULAR SCIENCE.

The WooDMAN's FIREwoRK. Accord
ing to the Journal of Chemistry, a CIR
die of compressed cakes of ~gun-cOttOn
tied around the trunk and ignited will
instantly c1t down the largest tree as
Clcanly rs the keenest knife.
FREsrDr PoIsON.-Lote tests of the
effect Of coal-ga7 upon vegetation in the
botanical garden of Berlin prove that
the hardest trees wilt rapidly and die
from contact of their roots with the car
homie poison. Another proof that win.
ter homes in which coal is the source OF
artificial heat should he well vent 3Atcd
for the health Of their occupants.
THE HEALTH GAUGE.-In announcing
daily the quantity of zone existing in
the mir, the weather bureau really gives
the sanitary tOnc of tho atmosphere.
Ozono, discovered in 1913 by Schori-
bcird, as a new chemical principle, Is Il
varied form of oxygen, and the most
powerful disinfcctant known and the
atmosphere is pure or impure, whole
Homo or sickly, according to the amount
present in it.
FoOD FOR IHOUGHT.-Of all fruits
and vegetables, the democratic apple is
found upon careful analysis to contain
the most phosphorus for the brain and
eliminativo acid for torpid livers. Its
effect upon the thinking faculties is
organically multiplying and stimulative,
and its juice acts as q chemical eQuiva-
lent for the muscular exercise that
should work Cifetc matter ont Of the
system.
AGAssIH MEsMERIZED.-In his yOUn-
ger days the late Prof. AGassiz met the
renowned mesmerist, Rev. ChaUncey
Hare YOwnsIend, Mt Neufchatel, in
Switzerland, and was us curious to be
magnotized as sccptical about tho pos
sibility. A few fourishcs and passes
of the mcsmcric hands deprived the
future great naturalist of v@0lition and
speech, the while lis mind was iniu-
cneed by the operators to every con-
cCivable fantasy, illusion, and delight.
He then believed in the power, but
never felt satisfied about its definition.
MIND MurroN.- Ono of the re-
cent admirable newspaper essays of
Prof. William Mathews, of the univer-
SibJ VI SIlthROt WIS uIJtu Litt IlbThllbf
and intellectually of good living. Quot
ing from DIR. Johnson, that ga man
who has HO regard for his stomach will
have no regard for anything else" the
professor contends that bad digestion
means decentralization of social charac-
ter no less than impairment of intellec-
tunl force. "Plain living and high
thinking" go together, whether in the
practical moralist or the poet.
SOLAR UPROAR.-Said Prof. Richard
A. Proctor, the celebrated English as
trOnomer, IN II of his recent Ameri-
can lectures 1.-THE seems to us to
be perfectly still. When we consider
what we have learned about him we
know that all the forms of uproar on
the earth are rs absolute quiet. Even
the hideous grooming of the earthquake
is surpassed a m~iliion-fold by the dis
turbances of every square mile of that
Unnamed sea. This is no idle dream.
This great central machine of the solar
sun, the central heart, pulsates with life
and will continue to do SO until the fuel
is exhausted"
SPURIOUS HYDRoPHoB1A.-The ten
dency of all modern scientific investi-
CATION goes to show that cases of genu-
1ne hydrophobia in human beings are as
rare as the visitations of visible comets.
by sheer nervous frenzy, people who
have been bitten by cross or distem
pered brutes bring upon themselves
sometimes n kind of hystericaI resem-
blanoe of the disease, occasionally end
ing fatally or the result s t%etanus, or
iockl0w, which might as readily have
followed from n common cut or scratch.
In all the ages Of medical history there
have not been n score of authoritatively
attested instances Of genuine human
hydrophobia.