St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1881-05-28
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

An ingeniOus illustration OF the lncOn-
ceiyable distance of the stars from the
earth was recently given by Prof. Ball
of Dublin. IF you suppose" said he,
"a railway from the earth to the near
eat fixed star, which is supposed to be
twenty billions of miles from us; and
if you suppose the price of the fare to
he one penny for every hundred miles
not, mind! penny per mile-then, if
you take mass of gold to the ticket Of
flee equal to the national debt, it would
not be sufficient to pay for ticket to the
nearest fixed star"
A new, worm-like parasite of pork
has been discovered by Berlin micro
scopist. The organism is found craw-
ling among the muscular fibres, some
times moving very actively.
A correspondent of an English jour-
nal asserts that he has himself observed
two spider showers-the fall of gossa-
mer spiders, in large numbers, from a
considerable height in the atmosphere
one in September, 1880. The first oc-
Cured OH a cloudy morning, after a
single peal of thunder, but no rainfall,
"About 10 A. M.," states this writer, 81
noticed small spiders running over my
coat-sleeves, and had to brush off seve-
raj trails of gossamer web. Looking
around, I found that the brick walls,
houses branches of trees, ETC., had
these webs dangling from them, and
that other webs were continually falling
from above and adding to the accumu-
lation. By midday long fence was
festooned from point to point of its
triangular rail tops with a ribbon-like
ladder of gossamer, along which ran
the SPIDERS"
1t is suggested that the aurora borealis
be studied with the photophone.
The telling Of forests is known to be
the cause Of the drying up of many a
stream, even large rivers having been
made to totally disappear through the
influence upon the climate of clearing
the land from wood. The classic lands
of antiquity abound with sad lessons of
deforestation. The springs and brooks
of Palestine are dry, and the soil has
lost its fruitfulness. The Jordan is
four feet lower than in New Testament
days. The fruitfulness of Sardinia and
Sicily, once the granaries of Italy, has
disappeared; while most of the coun-
tries of ancient civilization have suf-
fered from the desolating influence of
forest removal. On the other hand,
man can improve the condition of the
land in which he lives-more slowly in
deed, but quite as surely-by cultiva-
ting and preserving the forests. In ear
lier years the delta of Upper Egypt was
visited by but five or six rainy days in
year, but this number was Increased by
the planting of twenty million trees to
forty five or forty-s Remarkable re-
suits have been produced by the Suez
Canal. Ismaila is built on what was a
sandy desert, but siuce the ground has
become saturated with canal water,
trees, bushes and other plants have
sprung up as if by magic, and, with the
temperance of vegetation, the climate
has changed. A few years ago rain was
unknown in those regions, while in the
year ending in May, 1869, fourteen days
of rain were recorded, and once such a
storm that the natives looked upon it
as supernatural event. Rains have
continued to visit the country therea-
bouts, and 50 recently as a few weeks
since very heavy fall was reported.
"Glass silk" is largely used in Germa-
ny for filters. 1t is made by winding
threads of glass on heated cylinders,
and under the microscope the threads
appear as fine as the ultimate fibres of
silk or cotton.
Carlyle was hardly believer in evo-
luton as taught by Darwin, for in
letter to a friend he is said to have
written: "a good sort of man is this
Darwin, and well-meaning, but with
very little intellect. All, it is a sad, a
terrible thing to see nigh whole gen.
Grafton of men and women, protesting
to be cultivated, looking around in a
purblind fashion, and finding no God in
this universe. suppose it is reaction
from the reign of can't and hollow pre-
tense, protesting to believe what, in
fact, they do not believe. And this is
what we have got to. All things from
frog-spawn! The gospel of dirt the
order of the day! The older I grow
and now stand upon the brink of eter-
nity-the more comes back to me the
sentence in the Catechism which /
learned when a child, and the fuller
and deeper its meaning becomes. what
is the chief end of mani To glorify
God, and to enjoy him forever No
gospel of dirt, teaching that men have
from frogs through monkeys,
can ever set that aside"
There were sanitarians in the days of
our ancestors. So long as eight hun
dred years ago, in the time of Richard
III, an ordinance was enacted forbidding T
the pollution of rivers. drains, etc; an /
other in the reign of Edward III against /
selling "muzzled swine-fesh." ETC.; and
10 the reigns of Henry VI, and Henry
VII, and Elizabeth, for the inspection
and cleansing of sewers, against the
of cattle in towns, and
against the overcrowdipg of dwellings.