The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1880-03-26
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

A recent course of experiments made
to determine the heating power of gas
shows that one cubic foot of ordinary
sixteen-candlo coal gas will develop 31S
heat units, while water gas will give
only about 1877 heat units per cubic
foot.
Rivers aid in the distribution of
plants by bringing down to tho valleys
the seeds which accidentally fall into
the water. Thus the southern shores
OF the Baltic are visited by seeds which
grew in the interior of Germany, and
the western shores of the Atlantic by
seeds that generated in the interior of
America. A more remarkable fact is
That tho Gull stream has conveyed to
tho western coast of Europe the fruits
and seeds of plants which are indigen-
GUS to America in such state that they
might have vegctated under favorable
conditions of climate and soil.
Dana estimatct the upward increase
OF coral reefs TO be an average rate of
an inch a year, at which rate more than
10000 years must have been occupied
In the formation of a reef 1000 feet in
thickness.
An examination was lately made
OF a quantity of butter taken from an
slabastcr vase found in an Egyptian
tomb. 1t had evidently been melted
and poured into the vase, which had
then been scaled. After $500 years
the butter had become only slightly
rancid, and had fully retained the
chemical properties, taste and appear
ance of genuine butter.
In the Ashmolcan Museum at Oxford
is one of the oldest monuments of civil
ization in existence, if indeed it is not
tho very oldest. II is the lintel-stone
of tomb which formed the last resting
place of an official who lived in the
time of King Sent, of the second Egyp-
tan dynasty, whose date is placed by
M. Marietta more than six thousand
years ago. The stone is covered with
hieroglyphics and delicate and finished
sculpture.
Among matters of prehistoric archaol-
ology which of late have attracted
attention in Germany are the
"high-fields" or 'sheathen fields" where
the marks of ancient tillage are traced
on ground now waste or forest-grown.
These resemble the "elf-furrows" OF
Scotland, but in neither country has the
old agricultural race been identified.
Swedish meteorologsts have furnish
ed material for unlimited speculation
by preparing a catalogue of the auroras
seen during the space of more than
tbrna COMMUNICATIVE ;e f,o,,, D.,
1917. The record shows that in the pc
Rod from 1922 to 1893 auroras were
observed on 4,245 nights.
The life of Maiuka, who lived some
time at Dresden, is among the most in
structive of PHOTOGRAPHERS, as illus
trating the striking Intelligence of the
anthropoid, knowing how to unlock her
cage with the key, she stole and hid il
for future use; she took the carpenters
brad-awl and bored holes with it
through her own table; when pouring
drink from jug into her cup, she
would carefully stop short of overfilling
it. Her death had an almost human
pathos; she threw her arms around the
neck of the director of the gardens,
Herr Schopf, kissed him, and putting
her hand in his, lay down and died.
By means of delicate microphones,
Prof. Milne, Of Toxic, Japan, detects
shocks of earthquake so feeble as to be
unnoticcd by other instruments.
The malady commonly known as the
cholera of fowls is caused by minute
living organism. In its natural state
this organism is very fatal, but by pc
culiar mode of culture NJ. Pasteur, the
French chemist, claims to be able TO
greatly reduce its virulence. If fowls
are inoculated with the attenuated
virus he produces they become sick but
very few die, and those which recover
are secure from the moro virulcnt form
of the disorder. The fatal ELECTS of the
cholera of fowls may thus be prevent
ed. M. Pastcur hopes to be able to
adopt his plan of artificial culture to all
kinds of virus with the result of secur-
ing tho means OF reducing the severity
of all virulent maladies.
Mining at great depths is attended by
greater difficulty on account of the heat
than is generally supposed. At fifty
feet beneath the earth's surface it is be-
lieved point is reached where the
temperature is entirely unaffected by
the sun or any external influence, the
temperature at that depth being conse-
quently uniform in all sections of the
globe volcanic districts, of course, ex-
cepted). In this zone the thermometer
is found to indicate fifty degrees. Ii
has also been shown by further obser-
walton that the temperature increases at
the uniform rate of one degree for
every fifty-five feet of depth, so that at
seventeen hundred feet about seventy
eight degrees is indicated. This heat is
a severe test of the endurance of the
miners, and at one thousand feet great
er depth mining is impracticable. Ac-
cording to this rule of increase, the
temperature four thousand feet below
the surface must be not less than one
hundred and twenty-one degrees, and
at ten Thousand feet the boiling point Is
exceeded.