The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1880-02-20
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

among the late practical applications of
electricity.
Dynamite has been tried at Monte
Catillo, near Tivoli, for pulverizing
rock adapted TO the cultivation of the |
olive, and the experiment is described
as indicating a satisfactory result.
The annual prize of $4,000 francs.
given by the King of the Belgians for
works of a scientific character, is now
offered for the year 1881. 1t will be |
awarded the author of the best work |
OIL the means of improving seaports |
situated upon low and sandy coasts
such as Belgian ports. The competi-
ton is an international one, open to
all. All works must be sent to the |
"Ministcre dc fIuterieur" at Brussels, |
before January 1, next.
The International Conference on Arc
tic Exploration, which has been in ses
sion at Hamburg, advocates the gradu-
al establishment of a chain of stations
towards the polar regions.
The inhabitants of the Andaman Is
lands carry necklaces composed of frag
ments of the bones of deceased rela-
tives, while the widows among them
are stated to actually wear the skulls of
their late husbands on their shoulders.
In recent lecture on ethnology, Prof.
Flower exhibited the skull of an Anda-
mese man, to which was attached n
very elegant webbed sling by which it
had been suspended from the neck of
the widow.
Measurements of trees, taken in Scot
land i'll the summer seasons of 1878 and
1879, show a growth from ten to forty
one per cent less during the latter year
than in the former. The mean temper
ature of the summer of 1873 was fully
five per cent higher than in the CORES
ponding period of 1879.
Wasps' nests are frequently ignited
by some chemical action, supposed to
be that of the wax upon the paper-like
substances of which the nests are form
ed. Spontaneous combustion of this
nature is believed to have been the
cause of many mysterious fires in hay
stacks and farmers buildings.
In one of a series of photographs of
the moon, taken by Mr.. George Ber-
wick on very sensitive plates, three
well-defined rings around the moon are
shown. The cause of the singular APP
pearance has not been determined.
The rare and beautiful phenomenon of
the fdtG mOrgdnd was lately observed
at Freiburg, in Breisgau. While the
sun was shining brightly the fine pyra-
mid of the Cathedral tower was reflect
ed in the atmosphere just above its
summit, of course with the point down
ward.
M. lc Bon, the craniologist, makes
some statements which hardly bcspeak
for him popularity among the gentler
sex. AS the result of his observations
and comparisons he finds the skulls of
men to be, on an average, 172 grammes
heavier than those of women. He as
serts that while newly-born girl has a
heavier brain than newly-born boy
an advantage which she rapidly loses
the women of inferior races are rela-
lively superior to those of highly civil
lied peoples. In other words, woman
does not advance, and consequently the
differences between her and man are
constantly augmenting. II NJ. le Bon's
assertions are to be accepted as facts,
they would seem to point to the necess-
| ity of greater attention to the intellect
ual improvement of women, but the
learned doctor predicts that the abomi-
nation of desolation will fall on society
if women he removed from the happy
ignorance of their domestic hearths.
Mr.. Il. Russell calls attention to the
fact that the essential conditions requir-
cd to enable men to fly to a moderate
| Il Of ict bo
of conveying force with ease, and, sec
ondly, the convertibiliiy of force thus
conveyed into the mechanical rotation
or oscillation of vanes. 81 cannot"
says he, "bc wrong in assuming that a
steam engine sending an electrical cur
rent through wires attached to rotato-
ry APPARATUS might cause the appara-
tus Clearing man to direct it) to as
cend to II considerable height above the
earth"
Mr.. Henry T.. Vennor claims to be
fast reducing to rule the principle of
recurring periods in the weather, and
expects to soon be able to prognosticate
the general behavior of entire seasons.
A large workshop in France has been
lighted during the present winter by
means of Clamonds thermo- electric
light, the electricity being generated
by the heat used to warm the shop.
Concerning the possibility that Sod
ON and Gomorrah were destroyed by
meteors, Prof. Proctor writes: at can
readily be shown that Tempel's comet,
in whose track the November meteors
travel. must have passed near, and
may have passed very near, TO the
earth, at the time when, according to
tradition, Sodom and Gomorrah were
destroyed by fire from heaven.
Now it so happens that
at the time mentioned in the verse
THE sun was risen upon the earth
when Lot entered into Zoar; then the
Lord raincd upon Sodom and Gomor-
rah birthstone and fire from the Lord
out of heaven these cities lay almost
centrally on that disc of the earth
which was turned at the time towards
the radiant of the November meteors.
If ever a special and
not any large district of the earth could
be so rained upon by meteors that
towns in it could be destroyed, the ca
tastrophe would unquestionably be at
tended by just such circumstances
that is, the region would be as fully as
possible exposed to the hail of meteors
and this hail would be as heavy as pos
sible, which would require that either a
comet or part of its meteor train very
close to the comet should be the source
of the meteoric hail. The velocity
with which, under such conditions, the
meteors would rush through the air
would amount to about forty miles an
hour. 1t is noteworthy also that the
November meteors have been found
under spectroscopic analysis OF their
light to contain large quantities of sodi-
um, the chief. component of our COM
mon salt. From this some may be dis
posed to extract 'naturalistic' inter-
probation of the fate OF Lots wife.
Those who take interest in this theory
of the destruction of Sodom and Co
morrah might DOssibly manaOe tO find