The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1880-03-09

count for the earth's magnetism, was not
sufficient to- account for the whole of
that magnetism. But they still think
that the changes in the distribution OF
such charge, due to changes in the con-
dition of the diaiectic medium Between
the earth and the sun, may be sufi-'
cient reason for the known magnetic per-
turbations..
Some statistics of interest have been
officially published with regard to the
consumption of tobacco in Germany.
During the year 1878 that empire used
tobacco worth 1853, ,0a0, 900 marks, which
brought revenue to the Government of
26, 1866 marks. The quantity used
amounted to 2,196,000 hundred weights,
and of this 5S2, 600 had been smoked in
the shape of cigars. Reckoning 100
cigars to pound in weight, the number
OF cigars consumed in 1878 would be
more than 7,OO0,OO0,O00, or enough to-
give 10000, 900 smokers cigars a day all
the year round. Besides in cigars, the
Germans smoked 1927 200 hundred
weights of tobacco in other forms. They
snuffed 160, 600hundred-weights, and they
chewed 14,20O hundred-weights. More
than one-third of all this tobacco was
grown by Germany itself, mainly in
Rhenish Bavaria, Baden, South Hesse
and Alsace-Lorraine.
An abstract of paper read before the
Physical Society, London, at the late an
nual general meeting, on quartz and lee
land spar spectroscope, corrected for
chromatic alteration, by Or. W. II. Stone,
has been published in the foreign scien-
journals. This spectroscope has two Ice
landic spar prisms and spar train; but
it differs from the usual kind in having
the objectglasses of the telescope and
collimator as doublets, with positive.
Achromatism- is very nearly secured
through the greeat dispersive power of
the spar. In spectrum there is less
probability Of indistinctness, through
superposition than in telescope; but as
the lines in the field at one time nee al
teration to secure precise definition a
nicer degree of focusing is necessary
with unachromatic lenses, It is of ad-
vantage, however, to transmit the whole
of the rays from the collimator as par
allel os may be through the intra-objeet-
i've space and the prisms. M. Cornu has
devised somewhat similar apparatus.
Delamotte asserts that the Nile was
not the only river which watered ancient
or prehistoric Egypt. He believes that
the country was irrigated by number
of streams which flowed through chan
nels, still traceable, to which the Arabs
of the Desert apply the phrase ''riyers
without water" The cause assigned by
Delamotte for the. disappearance of these
rivers is thus stated:
In prehistoric times the plateau of
Kartum was a great lake like the Vic
torla Nyanza and Lake Tanganyika,
from which the Nile issued as it issues
to-day from its two lakes; but the cata-
racts were then much higher, and when
the river reached them it divided into
different currents, which formed the
streamless channels of the present time,
but which then watcred the district
which is now desert. After long cen
turies the granite and porphyry Of the
cataracts were worn away, and their
level having been lowered, the Nile re-
tired to send all of its volume through
the existing water channel.
If, says the scientist, the cataracts be
raised by artificial means, and the courses
of the bahr-el-abiad or rivers without
water, will be again charged with fruc-
tifying agency which will increase ten
fold the fertility of the arabic land of
Egypt. The heightening OF the cata-
racts thus advocated has received the Sc
rious attention of the Khedive, and it is
not improbable that, in view Of the tri-
umphs of French engineers of late in
other directions, more will be heard of
this, sllgpestion.