Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-03-12
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

the land existing above the sea-level.
Prof. Cook believes the Hessian
fly will be ultimately exterminatsd
by the parasites preying upon it.
He affirms that the potato beetle is
being reduced in numbers from a
like cause.
The phosphorescent property of
salphide Of calcium has been applied
to photography, a picture being pro-
duced that is scarcely visible by
daylight but which stands out in
startling relief in the dark.
1t is claimed by an Italian botan-
ist that the perfumes of plants exert a
healthful influence upon the atmo-
sphere by creating ozone, and thus
adding to its oxidizing effect. His
experiments indicate that no ozone
is produced by inodorous plants.
The eminent Berlin physicist.
Prof. Siemens, lately prophesied
that g, the energy of the solar rays,
manifested in currents Of air or in
falls OF water. nay by-and-by,
through the elcri.r current, furnish
ali heat Necessary, and render us in
dependent of ordinary fuel"
II asked" says Professor Tyn-
dali, whether science has solved,
or is in our day likely to solve, the
problem of the universe. 1 must
shake my head in doubt. Behind
and above and around us the real
mystery of the universe lies unsolved,
and, as far as we are concerned, is
incapable of ISOLATION. The problem
of the connection of the body and
the soul is as insoluble in its modern
form as it was in the prescientifc
ages. There ought to be a clear
distinction made between science in
the state of the hypothesis and sci
ence in the state of fact; and mas
much as it is still in its hypothetical
stage, the ban of exclusion ought to
fall upon the theory of evolution.
An exceedingly simple test for
butter has been communicated to the
Belgian Academy. When heated in
a shallow vessel to temperature be-
tween one hundred and fifty and
ono hundred ana sixty degrees, ar
tificial butter produces very little
froth, but the mass undergoes o
sort of irregular boiling, accompanied
by violent jerks which tend to pro-
ject some Of the butter out. of the
vessel. The Gaseous matter separ-
ates in brown clots on the sides,
while the fatty portion of the sample
retains its natural color. Natural
butter, on the other hand, similarly
heated produces abundant froth, the
jerks are slight, and the mass takes
on q uniform brown color.
Somebody has ascertained that in
smallpox poor people are pitted
less than the Iich, and no classes are
pitted under their dress. Poor peo-
| pie have less light in their homes
than the rich, while under the dress
there Is of course little light in eth
er case. The explanation, accord
ing to this observer. is scientific
one. The sunlight consists of three
primary colors. The red, the blue
and the yellow rays have distinct
and characteristic properties: the
red gives heat, the yellow gives light,
and the blue gives actionism or
chemical effect. Now, the pus of
variolar pustules absorbs, by it's yell
low medium, the actinic rays, which
results in corrosion of the tender
flesh at the base, thus leaving pits.
AT late meeting of the Liverpool
Engineering Society, a paper was
read touching the probable exhaus-
ton Of the coal supply, in which the
author advocated the substitution of
the tides as producer of motion
which would outrival all other
sources Of mechanical power. This
opinion is shared by another English
writer. A compressed air chamber
filled by the tide at Brighton, for in
stance, would. he is confident, run
an atmospheric railway from that
place to London. II the tides could
be thus utilized, all English rail-
WAYS and factories. in fact. all the