The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-05-22
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

A WORLDS FAIR of sheep, wool, and
wool products under. the auspices of the
Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society,
is announced to be opened in Philadel-
phia, Sept. p, Immediately after the
State Fair, thus making the two exhibit
tons continuous, with an aggregate of
prizes amounting to $4,000 of which
$4,000 is for sheep, and 81, 900 for wool,
wool products and "other manufacture
ing goods"
THE latest plan for crossing the
dreaded English Channel is embodied
in model now before the Admiralty
for a monster floating railway station,
which is to carry trains across the
Channel at the rate of fourteen knots
an hour. 1t is stated that "each train
would provide accommodations for
1000 passengers, which would require
sixty or more railway carriages.
DIR. BERGGREN, the botanist who ac-
companied Prof. Nordenskjold over the
ice in Greenland, in 1870, discovered
species of alg@ which grew in and
among the clefts of the ice, and which
by its internal heat rotted the ice away.
1t is pronounced to be dangerous
enemy to ice, even when in blocks of
many thousands of feet in thickness and
hundreds of miles in extent.
A KEEN competition promises to take
place between the competitors in India
for the prize of $4,000 rupees for the
best invention, and 10, 900 for the second
the Rhea fiber, which is worth 5000 to
$3.50 per ton in England. The judges
will be called upon to describe the proc
ess and determine if the conditions of
the government notification have been
complied with, while the quality of the
fiber produced will be left to experts at
home.
A NEW military projectile has been
invented by M. Lamarre, of Paris, and
experiments are now being made with
it at Grenoble. The invention consists
of fire balls to be projected by the guns
of fort, which while exploding would
throw light upon the enemy's position
at night. The object is to prevent in
and the projectile is provided with a
grenade, which explodes within GER
tain time, so as to keep the enemy off
and hinder him from extinguishing the
light.
Won FREDERICK MULLER, in his treat
Use on Universal Ethnography,"
strongly maintains that the distinctions
of the various human races are perma-
nent, citing in support of his opinion
the evidence afforded by the most an
Gent of the Egyptian monuments,
where the negro is represented with ALI
of those characteristic physical traits
he possesses to-day, after the lapse of
from 1000 to 5000 years. All research
has afforded no countenance whatever
to the hypothesis that the negro and
the European descended from the same
parents.
BUD-vARIATIoN is fully recognized
now, and new varieties are produced as
well as from seed. Botanists, however,
continue to record examples, the
latest of which is by Fritz Null
Ter, who, writing from Brazil,
says that a banana, which for years
produced reddish fruit, one season sent
up a stem which bore yellow fruit; and
he asks whether all the varieties of ba-
nanas may not have originated in this
way? This is the general belief, as they
do not perfect seeds. All the varieties
of sweet potatoes in America are pro-
duced by ud-variation-the plant not
Towering under culture.