The Indiana State sentinel., 1877-06-20
sCIEETIFIC NOTES.

Professor Kohlrausch has tested the con-
ductivity of alcohol, and he finds that it, in
several instances, conducted better than pure
water. This is contrary to the general belief
that water conducts much better than alco
hol. In the books both alcohol and ether
have been set down as non-conductors, or as
semi-cOnductOTs.
Professor Hawaii, the Russian naturalist,
has found enclosed in a specimen of quartz
taken from Ufales, Siberia, fragments and
complete remains of a pale green caterpillar
which he thinks is the larva of the Tneid
moth. In another crystal he discovered fila
mentous Enclosures which he takes to be
conferv@.
Father Secchi, writing to friend in Bel.
gium alludes in striking terms to the re-
markable connection between the magnet
ism of the earth and the changes of the
weather. He says that the variations shown
sufficient to indicate the state of the sky.
Even where there is no great movement of the
barometer, following such magnetic disturb
ances, there are, especially in summer,
changes of the wind and sometimes storms.
Preserved peas are, far more commonly
than people think, covered with salts of cop
per, to counterfeit the fresh natural tint
If they are put up without being artificially
colored they have yellOwish hue, and this
suggests an easy test of their purity by SIM
pie inspection. Pasteur has found that out
of IA cases of peas which he anslyzed 10 had
been treated with copper to such an amount
in some instances that this poisonous adul-
terant was equal to one ten-thousandth of
the entire mass minus the water.
The next annual meeting of the American
Pathological association will be held at Balti-
more, in the hall of the Jonas Hopkins uni
I'll A IL.
committee of arrangements and reception
includes the mayor of Baltimore, the super
intendent of public schools of that city and
the president of its school board, the super
intendent of public schools of Maryland,
the president of the Johns Hopkins univer-
sity and several other Baltimoreans of emil
nence.
New evidences are now quite numerous of
the connection between disturbances in the
solar atmosphere and in the earths magnet
ism. For the last year or two there have
been few remarkable displays of the aurora;
and that period has been also one of singular
ly few sun spots. On the morning after the
great auroral display at the beginning of this
week Professor c. A. Young made an exam
ination of the suns surface, and found the
protuberances in the chromosphere more
active than they had been previously for
four years.
1t is difficult to procure an India ink
which will serve for half-shades, and the
following recipe from the Papier Zeitung
may be of service to artists and Others:
Take eight parts lampblack, GA parts water,
and four parts of finely pulverized indigo,
and having rubbed the whole thoroughly,
boil the mixture until most of the water is
evaporated; add five parts gum arabic, two
parts glue, and one part extract of chicory.
Lastly. boil the composition again until it is
thickened to a paste, which can be shaped
in molds to any desired form.
From time to time stories have been
brought from certain tropical islands in the
Pacific that there were races of men some
where in the unknown interior who pos
sessed veritable tails. But no trustworthy
traveller has yet certified to the statement
Latterly the locality of these men with tails
has been shifted in vague rumors to New
Guinea The announcements have been
rarely more than a brief sentence In some
of the foreign journals, and no authority
has hitherto been given. But at last they
take more definite form. The Rev. w. G.
Lawes, of the London missionary society
acknowledges having received ''circumstan-
tial reports of men with not very flexible
tails" said to live in the interior of New
Guinea The men of science must look to
this 1t will never do to let the missionaries
discover the missing link" and compel
Messrs. Darwin and Huxley to ask odds of
the patrons of Exeter hall.