The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1880-06-26
Scientific Miscellany.

Scientific Miscellany.
The result of the great Derby race
in England was cab1ed from London to
New York in twenty FIVE seconds.
| Among the elegant novelties of the
hour now offered for sale on the Paris
boulevards are phosporescont flowers,
which glow with a lambent light in the
dark, and rival their natural tints. They
are rendered luminous by coating the
petals with transparent size and then
dnsting them with some plosphorescent
substance, such as sulphide Of calcium.
| "A foreign medical journal reports
that hypodermic injections of philocar-
pine III certain diseases of the eye had
not only the effect of curing the diseases,
| but of restoring the hair on the heads of
patients. One man, quite bald, was suf-
fering from double cataract. Three in
jections of the philocarpine were per-
formed in fourteen days. The men,
brane over the pupil Of the eye disap-
peared, and the head first became COW
cred with thick down and then with
| an abundant crop of hair.
Prom carefully studied records of the
occurrence of certain diseases in the
past, an English physician infers that
| epidemics sweep over the country in
quite regular periods, the cycles being of
about the following length: whooping
cough, four years small pox, four to five
years; measles, seven years; scarlet
fever, fifteen to twenty years.
| England has new pest, the tipnla
grub, which ultimately develops into a
daddy longlegs.' It is very destruc-
tive to vegetation, and its ravages have
become quite serious.
| 1t has been estimated that 1000
miles Of underground chambers exist in
the limestone Of Kentucky.
An ostrich, which had long been on
exhibition in Rome, died the other day,
when :sn examination of the contents Of
it's stomach revealed four large stones,
eleven smaller ones, seven nails, a neck
tie pin, an envelope, thirteen copper
coins, fourteen beads, u French franc,
| two small keys, q piece Of a handker-
chief, silver medal of the Pope, and
| the cross of an Italian order.
"A singular phenomenon was lately
1 lr1x U.+
| before sunrise an enormous number of
luminous bodies rose from the horizon
| and passed in horizontal course from
East to West. Some of them seemed of
the size of d walnut, whila others re-
sembled tho sparks flying from a chiia-
ney. They moved through space like a
string Of beads, and emitted -ra.parl-
ably brilliant light. The belt contain
ing them appeared about ten feet in
length and two or three feet in width.
A rain of dnst in the Basses-Alpes
during five days of last April gave
reddish tinge to the snow on the noun
tains to he1ght of nearly 10000 feet,
the snow higher MP remaining white.
The dust is supposed to have been of
terrestrial, although not volcanic, ORR
gin. Somewhat similar showers fell in
1886 and 1868.
/ AT Parimaribo, in Dutch Guiana,
the annual rainfall is 229 inches, or 10
feet; and south of Bombay, in the West
ern Ghants at Mahabaleshwar, the an
nual fall is 302 inches, equivalent to
layer of water Is feet in depth.
| "A large prehistoric map of Bavaria
is being published.
Prof. Proctor states that he found
the interest in scientific progress much
more general and appreciative in this
country than in England.
1t is interesting to note to what ex-
tent the doctrines of evolution are
taught in our higher institutions of
learning. In paper upon the "Critics
of Evolution" in the May and June
numbers of the American Naturalist,
Prof. Lippincott says that at Harvard
every professor whose departments are
connected with biology-such as Gray,
Whitney, A. Agassiz, Hagen, Goodale,
Shaler, Farlow and Faxon-is an evolu-
Zionist, and mans physical structure
they regard as no real exception to the
law. They are said to be theists and all
conservative men. At John Hopkins
University, which aims to be the most
advanced in the country, evolution is
held and taught. In the University OF
Pennsylvania all the biological pro-
fessors are eyolutionists-Leidy, Allen,
Rothrock and Parker. At Yale, Michigan
University, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth
Bowdoin, Princeton. the biological pro-
fessors are in the same category
Wherever there is Il working naturalist
he is sure to be almost without excep-
: ton, an eyolntionist.
! The plant most sensible to electriei
r ty is the vine. When lightning strikes
D in u vineyard the leaves affected arr
j. turned red brown or deep green, whicl
1 circumstance shows, in the opinion o
. Prot. Colladon, that the electricity de
. scends in sheet or shower, aud not in
single point as is usually believed, TIN
large number of vines touched proving
that the lightning has covered larg
area The professor finds this theor.
. confirmed by an observation on q tre
= which was lately struck.