Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1881-03-04
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.


for the advancement of Science will
meet in Cincinnati, and ut Montreal
in 1882.
A French explorer of the banks Of
the Niger announces the finding OF n
new vine, which he believes must
prove of great economical value, as
it is easily cultivated and the grapes
are excellent and abundant. He
suggests that tAis vine may be found
to resist the phylloXera.
A sheet of paper dipped in so.
luton of cobalt forms Il very simple
barometer. When the weather is to
be dry and pleasant, the paper will
become blue: and on the approach
of wet weather it viii turn pink.
The barometer flowers Of France are
manufactured on this principle.
1t is reported that, on a recent
visit to New Guinea, Captain Law
son made the interesting geosra
plical discovery that Mount Her
cules has al alttud Of 81 $50 feet,
thus being moro than 5000 feet
higher than Nt,'i Everest, which
has for goa. l34D.c time been re-
garded a. ,uc tallest mountain in
the world,
The great development Of the
Norwegian herring fishery during
the last twenty years, is sail to be
chiefly due to tho utilization of the
electric telegraph. When shoal
is discovered approaching any local
lily, the fact is Immediately tele-
graphed to the neighboring stations,
so that the fisherman are enabled to
tu!u ont en- Dt,t>S" for The capture of
their tinny prey. About loo miles
Va WIG arc III u5c iol tilio qua 'o9t'
In other parts Of the world watchers
have been stationed at favorable
points to announce the approach OF
shoals of fish, but this device of the
Norwegian fisherman is the first APP
plication to the Same end of the
more scientific appliance.
\ German physician entcrtains
the novel view that insanity is Il boon
to mankind. He contends that the
loss of reason lands the sufferer
from IL sea of trouble into state of
comparative calm-often of decided
happiness; and attempts to restore
such a person to sanity would be
cruel rather than kind. Moreover,
he insists that a certain amount of
insanity is necessary to success Ill
life. All eminent men are decid-
edly more or less mad. Many of
them are dangerous monomaniacs
whom it should be decided Oh pub
lie grounds to shut up, but who,
nevertheless, achieve grand careers
and are credited with doing a vast
amount of good. The general prev
alence of false notions Of sanity he
attributes to the fact that the great
er mass of humanity is also insane,
and quite unable to distinguish be-
tween good and evil.
The microscope shows q variation
in the thickness of human hair from
one two-hundiedth to one siX-lun-
dreath part of an inch, but notwith-
standing such tineness, each hair is
o massive cable when compared
with some other tibers. The thread
OF the silk-Worm, for instance, is
from one seventeenth ndredth to
UAu two-thousanu Of an inch thick.
Even this however, is far surpassed
i'll slenderness by the spiders thread
which has found in some cases to be
no more than one thir,y-thousandth
Of an inch in diameter. The tibers
yielded by the vegetable kingdom
are also of astonishing minuteness.
Every fiber of fax is found to be
composed of a bundle of other tibrils,
which are about one tweIty-fve-hun-
dredth of M inch in thickness.
Similar fibers from the pineapple
plant have been ascertaincu to he
no more than one five-thousandth,
or even one seven-thousandth, of an
inch in diameter.
TIE C0urier learns from a CORE
spondent at Coupeville that Mrs.