The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1879-09-10

16, 293 528, 600 Of cubic feet, or ct the rate Of
more than 1900 cubic feet per head. the
population in the middle of 1878 being
3.577 ,304. In nine years the ratio has thus
risen about so per cent The London gas
companies use 400 tons of coal day.
Their capital in 1869 was FL ,s2s, s44. and last
year it was ELS, 232, 514.
Beans are good for food in every situation,
especially at sea- because the seeds are Inv
ing, and the phosphates contained In them
are in a more or less soluble condition. II
beans are hard, dry, and incapable of germi-
mating, their phosphates will need to be
rendered soluble by citric acid or some
other available agent, otherwise the system
will be insuficiently supported with nutri
ment.
The British Medical Journal remarks that
during the last time the plague was cpl
demic at Vetljanka, Russia, not single case
occurred among the Kalmucks. who lived
not very far from that place. This fact Ia
SURPRISING, as the Kalmucks live totally re
gardless of sanitary rules. Their religion
does not permit them to eat any flesh ex-
cept that of animals which are found dead I;
they do not bury the bodies OF persons who
die, out simply throw them into the fields;
and in person they are far from being scru
pulously clean. The conclusion seems to
be that antl-hygienic conditions alone do
not produce the plague, and that there is
some other agent to which this disease is
really due.
NJ Coulon, the conservator of the Indus
trial museum, of Rouen, has. says the Ma
ture, discovered a new system for transform
ing sound into light, which phenomenon
has been the subject of a lecture by NJ. Frank
Geraidy with the Cover telephone. Two
Geissler tubes are put in quick rotation on
an axis The Ruhmkorf coil of the first is
worked by an ordinary interruption, and
L q - II
interruption of the second is replaced by q
telephone. The figure presented by the
second tube projects on the first one, which
is colored by uranoxide glass, and exhibits
the most rapid changes, according to the
height of the note delivered in the telephone
trumpet. The sens1bllity of the changes is
startling and most interesting.
A passage in lecture delivered by Mr..
Strahan, on the barometer and its uses, be.
fore the Meteorological society, London, has
given birth to an important suggestion
which is thus set forth by q writer in the
Nature: A substantial advance may be
made in the system of British weather fore
casting, by some central authority in Ameri
ca receiving by telegraph extracts from the
logs of all vessels directly they arrive al
Atlantic ports, by the aid of which warn
ings may be framed and wired to Europe OF
such storms as may appear to threaten Its
coasts. In this connection, he also says, il
is not possible to overestimate the impor-
lance of a telegraph wire to Farce and Ice
land, by which warnings of many storms
there seen approaching European coasts
could be issued one or two days earlier, al
least, than at present
The received opinion that vein of coal
simply represents mass of vegetation. which
has been changed directly into that sub
stance, is opposed by NJ. Frenzy. Some time
ago he adopted a synthetic method to dis
cover the real secret of the manner in which
coal was produced, and his experiments
appear to show that while fiber could not be
converted into anything resembling coal
certain substances of vegetable origin, such
as sugar, starch, gum vasculsse, etc., die
admit of that conversion. An artificial Goa
made of these latter materials yielded gas
tar, water and coke, just like ordinary pit
ceal. Gum, inclosed with water in a sealed
tube, and subjected to heat, was changed
into a coal containing Is per cent. of carbon
5 per cent of hydrogen, and 16 per cent. Of
oxygen. His conclusions are that coal is no
the direct result of vegetable substances
that the impressions of plants sometimes
found in it have been produced after thu
modification was established, and that there
are two stages in its formation, the first con-
sisting of q fermentation of peat, and tn,
second of the Transformation OF alinic acit
into mineral fuel, under the joint action
of beat and pressure.