The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-01-01
SCIENTIFIC NOTES.

/
enormous blast of dynamite which
took place at Cauldon Lowe Limestone
Quarry, near Frogall. To test the
strength of the dynamite, it was de-
| cided to charge a chamber with IL cwt.
The fuse was then fired, and in the
space of eleven minutes the charge
| exploded with immense effect, bring
ing down the face of the quarry 81
feet back for Il long distance, the
quantity of stone dropped being
roughly estimated at 10000 tons.
This shot illustrated the great saving
of labor in using dynamite.
In an exhaustive examination of the
movements of the wings of birds in
hving, DIR. Alix comes to the follow
down-stroke begins by moving forward
to attain its basis of support; after
which it strikes briskly from above
downwards, and at the same time from
| before backwards, rs Il result of which
the bird is projected forwards. 2. At
| the moment at which the wing COM
mences to descend, its lower surface
looks forward; but as it descends, this
surface gradually turns to look directly
downwards, and ultimately more and
more backwards. 3. During the as
cent of the wing, it moves upward and
forward, its inferior surface at the same
| time looking forward.
PRoFEssoRJEvoNs, after a careful ex-
animation of the trade returns for many
years, has established connection be-
tween sunspots and the price of corn.
| The maXima of sunspots, it is well
known, occur every eleven years and
it is found that the price of corn rises
in the tenth, eleventh, first, second,
and third years of the sunspot period.
1t is also pointed out that commercial
panics have tended to rccur during the
last fifty-four years in distinctly peri
odic manner. The average length of
interval between the principal panics
is about los years, nearly coinciding
with ILL, the length of the solar-spot
period. If Professor Balfour Stewart
be right in holding that the sunspot
variation depends on the CONGREGATIONS
are the remote cause of the greatest
commercial disasters.
| DURING late official investigation
into the cause of one of the many re-
cent English railway accidents it was
stated that, owing to the presence of
continuous brakes, the engineer had at
his command the means of stopping Il
train going at the rate of fifty miles an
hour within four hundred yards. The
| 4 IL
duced special trial to be made, with
the following results: A regular train
was made up, fitted with continuous
brakes, and run at the rate above men-
toned. At Il given signal, the brakes
were put on, the engine reversed, and
when the train had stopped the distance
was measured. This was found to be
eight hundred yards, or nearly half a
mile; and, as the trial was a fair one,
the result may be taken as final, and
will serve to set at rest the oft-repeated
assertion that train going ut full
speed may be stopped within its own
length.
CERTAIN interesting experiments on
the growth of seeds have been con-
Quoted by M. Uloth. These were I'M
dertaken with view to determine
whether seeds could be made to germi-
nate in ice, and the process may be de-
scribed us follows: Seeds of various
species were placed in grooves made in
ice-cakes, and over the grooved surface
other plates of ice were laid, and the
whole removed to a cool cellar in Jan
uary, and there remained till the fol-
lowing May. An examination then
made disclosed the fact that many of
the seeds had actually terminated, the
roots penetrating into the ice. 1t is
but natural that facts of this startling
character should give rise to controver
sy, and so we are not surprised to learn
that opposite views are entertained as
to whence the heat needed for the pro-
cess of growth was obtained. In the
opinion of the experimenter, it was
obtained, or rather liberated, in the
growth of the roots while forcing them
selves into the ice.-Appletons Journal.
TIE Saturday Review characterizes
the literature of spiritualism very
plainly and pointedly. 1t says: "The
chief thing that must strike any ration
al mind on taking up the literature of
what is called 'spiritism' is its intense and
irredcemable dreariness. Weary, flat,
stale, and Improbable as the courses of
this world may have been pronounced,
none but the veriest lunatic would think
to better himself by flying to one the
course of which is likely to be such
as the mediums have to tell us of.
Any thing more stupid than the doings,
more vapid than the talk, more point
less than the whole life which goes on
in the so-called world of spirits, it is
not in the power of man to conceive
No wonder that the heroes in the
Elysian Fields had rather, as they told
Telemachus, serve as the veriest bonds
men in the world of daylight and the
earth than reign over the shades, if the
unearthly abode of the blessed CORE
sponded in the slightest degree with the
melancholy blank which seems to make
up 'mediumistic' existence at its best
Universal and unmitigated imbecility
certainly seems to be the state to which
what are put forward as the higher
class of spirits are one and all reduced.
! As for the lower orders, the wickedness
of their old Adam finds vent in pranks
and INVESTIGATIONS too childishly inane
to be accused of serious mischief We
never heard, at least, of any thing
worse than pulling unbelievers' boards
in the dark, or hitting them over the
head with banjo"
THE Builder says: Our streets and
our houses are lighted up at night with
the self-same sunshine which the carbon
of the antediluvian trees had imbibed
ages upon ages ago. Nature had
merely treasured the golden rays, and
kept them locked in the subterranean
Golfers of the earth, until such time as
man should discover the secret spring
of the c;sket, and be able to claim as