Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-07-30
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

In freeZlng, water eXertS a pres
sure Of thirty thousand pounds per
square inch.
The next transit of Venus occurs
in 1882, but after that there will not
be another for hundred years.
A German physician asserts that
railway employees are more liable
to affections of the spinal cord than
other men.
1t is estimated that about 500 ,O)O,-
600, 900 tons of sediment are yearly
carried to the Gulf of Mexico, by
the Mississippi River.
In China turpentine, a rare and
much-adulterated product. DR.. John
Clay, of Birmingham, Eng, believes
he has disco, cred specific for can
Ger. BY it's aid lie claims to have
cured several severe cases without
resort to surgical operations.
Statistics of England's mortality
show that during the last thirty years
more women have reached tho age of
seventy-five or eighty years than
men. The latter suffer more from
lung, heart and kidney diseases,
which have o. a. Jecn on the in
crease in En- land.
1t is said that adullerated sugar
may be detected by very simple
test. ~ little pure sugar is taken ir
the mouth and when dissolved is re-
placed Ivy little of the suspected
article. If the latter contains starch,
glucose or chloride of tin, distinct
ly bitter TASTE will be present.
Increased attention to the laws of
health has considerably reduced the
death-rate in London during recent
years. The chief sanitary evil of the
metropolis now is an impure water
supply, to secure immunity from
which the health authorities are
striving.
Experiments with the solar engine
are yet being made 10y M. Mouchot
in Algeria. With o concave mirror
twelve feet in diameter he contracts
the heat of the sun upon small
boiler, within which he obtains q
steam pressure of about one hundred
and twenty pounds in an hours
time. In the preparation of chem.
icals he makes practical use OF the
heat from the boiler.
Common sense" says Prof.
Huxley, is science exactly so far
, Us it fulfills the ideal of common
sense; that is, sees facts as they are,
or ut any rate without the distortion
of prejudice, and reasons from them
in accordance with the dictates of
sound judgment. And science i,
simply common sense at its best;
that is, rigidly accurate in observa-
ton, and merciless to fallacy in log
ic."
The heat of the springs OF Khan.
es.Aigues, which reaches about one
hundred and eighty degrees Fahren-
heit, is used by the inhabitants for
purposes of cooking and heating
their dwellings. NJ. Berthier has
estimated that the heat furnished
; daily by these springs equals that
produced by the combustion of more
than four and half tons of coal,
and it is sufficient to comfortably
warm the houses Of the village and
even the streets throughout tho Win.
ter season.
With new Photograph" for re-
cording the intensity of the suns
radiation, Mr.. D. Winstanley has
observed a curious "thermal twi-
light" The instrument shows q
rise in the temperature before sun
rise, owing to solar radiation. A
more remarkable circumstance, how
ever, is that, fall of temperature
being indicated little after sunset,
: the-index mysteriously rises just be-
fore midnight and sinks again, al
though the sun is then directly over
} the opposite hemisphere.
On the slopes Of Amethyst Noun
tain, in the Yellowstone Park, are
, exposed ut different levels a large
: number of silicified trees, many be-