The Hickman courier., 1874-09-11
SCIENTIFIC FRAGMENTS.

THE French bishop of Canton has
presented to the Jardin d'Acclimatior
In Paris a curious Chinese plant, which
changes its color three times a day.
EARTH decomposes heterogeneous sub
stances, and for that reason should
never be mixed with manures until they
are about to be applied. The manure
from earth closets turns out to be IN
expecte5ly poor, and contains only one
fifth of the nitrogen which has beer
placed in it, the loss being due TO the
decomposition of the nitrogenous sub
stances by the earth.
NJ. VIoAIRE communicates TO the
French Academy some observations OF
the probable duration of the suns heat
He thinks that what is ordinarily con
sidered to be the mass of the sun is
really very much below the truth. Con
sidering the enormous pressure at the
centre OF the luminary, he thinks there
is nothing unreasonable in supposing 8
mean density amounting to ten or TWEEN
ty times the received figure. This would
multiply the duration OF the sun as q
luminary by just so much.
AT distance of 80 miles south of the
Union and Pacific railroad, and 900 west
of Omaha, great hill of almost pure
sulphur was discovered about two years
ago. This is one of the most remarka-
BILE deposits of native sulphur in the
world. It contains only Is per cent. of
impurities. In the sulphur deposits of
Sicily, says the Scientific American, the
pure sulphuf only 65 per cent, and
hence our weI 3ern sulphur is much the
more valuablg and promises to become
ere long of great importance to the
country.
NJ. BURoUE publishes in Complies Rem
dus new method Of measuring the
velocity of lighE. If disk is made TO
sSS e HAE FqgdE Bgg LIZ and St aseh tqa1 paR
of light, a radial line placed on the
disk viii appear to be stationary. Ii
then the source of light be withdrawn
and placed at a distance th1s-iss~'ssss-T-str-
OF the light raw will
allow the radial line before illuminated
to pass beyond the line of vision. A
new radius viii be illuminated, and the
angle between the two will be the meas
ure of the time of the lights passage.
4 PROCESS for the manufacture of iron
direct from the ore, the use of the blast
furnace being dispensed with, has been
invented by F. w. Gerhard. Instead
of pig-iron this process employs a com
pound called "i1o D coke" which con-
sists Of a mixtur. tof ore Cor any sub
stance containing from, the necessary
faxes, and the equivalent of carbon. A
lump of this compound is put into the
furnace, and by the single process known
as "balling" "heat" may be obtajned
in considerably less time and with con-
siderably less labor than under the old
method, the process of melting" and
" boiling" being entirely dispensed
with. The most important feature ~
the invention is the great saving which |
it effects IN fuel.
NEARLY every, season a paragraph |
goes the round of the newsT aoers as |
serting that the movements of a tide |
have been noticed IN the great lakes. Tt !
is we'll known, however, that such is not
the case. In order to establish the fact
however, one way or the other. one o;
the ablest officers connected with the
United States lake survey, at Detroit
Mich, for several seasons carried ont q
series of observations at several points
upon the lakes, the effect OF which would
be- to show that there was a tide. pro-
vidlng such flow of waters existed I;
The result, however, was established
without doubt that no tide was ner-
ceptlble at any of the points, or Il 80
not to exceed one or two inches. which
was practically no tide at all.