The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1881-06-23
SCRAPS OF SCIENCE.

THE deepest known worked mine is in
Australia-a shaft having been sunk
1900 feet. -
/ A ME of the French Academy of
Sciences has discovered well marked
sexual differences in cells.
SPECIMENS of fossil woods and Ignite
are reported to have been brought to the
surface from the depth of 191 feet while
boring an artesian well at Galveston,
Texas. g
Experiments at Woolwich have DEM
onstrated that the transmission of deto-
nation from one mass of gun cotton to
another not in contact is SO rapid that a
row of gun cotton reaching from london
10 Edinburg could be fred In two
| minutes. AL
L REPLYING to the question whether or
not our ancestors were acquainted with
the peculiar physical condition known to
us as somnambulism, DIR. Reynard, of
Paris, said in a recent lecture that one
of the most accurate descriptions of
somnambulism in existence was the
sleep-walking scene of Macbeth.
Four Jeurdan glycerine barometers
are now in use in or lear London. One
is at Kew, in the museum of practical
| geology, one at South Kensingten, and
one in the office of the London Times.
The enormous scale of the barometer
enables changes scarcely visible in the
mercurial instrument to be detected with.
ease.
RossETTI has found that the tempera-
ture of the positive carbon of the elect
nc arc is between 2,400 degrees, and
5000 degrees c~entrigrade, and that of
the negative carbon between 1900 de-
grees and 8 300 degrees, making, there
fore, the temperatures of the extreme
points of the electrodes not below $500
degrees and G, 800 degrees.
EXPERIMENTS have been made on ami
mails with pure hydrocianic acid by M.
Brame. The bodies of those killed with
it remained unaffected by decomposition
for about a month. During that time
the acid remained in the tissues, and
especially in the stomach. 1t could be
easily settled to distiHation, but much
more readily from the tissues of herbiv.
oreus than of carniverous animals.
In A communication to the st. Peters.
burg Technical Society, Prof. Beilstein
recommends the use of sulphate OF
alumnia as the best practical disinfec.
tant. He states that the. best. method
of making the salt for disinfecting pur.
poses is to mix red clay with four pei
cent. of sulphuric acid and to add to the
mixture some carbolic acid for destroy.
ing the smell of the matter to be disin.
fected.
A SCIENTIST in the Magaziae of Phar.
macy asserts that the usual physico
chemical methods for determining the
potable nature of water have proved
themselves to be quite insufficient, an6
he says that recourse must be had tt
the microscope and tothe culture-glasse'
used by psychologists in their inocula
ton experiments, before any really seunf
and valuable knowledge can be gained
by the examination of watersn as to thei
purity or %impurity..
ALARM with indignation has arisen il
Halle regarding tarletans rendered pois
onous by the introduction of cope
arsenite in their production. DIR. Rel
man has attempted to allay7 the genera
cutlery by stating that copper arsenite j
not a splendid green color, and as TO
such goods as tarletans, Guignet's green
which contains no arsenic, has quite dis
placed the poisonous Schweinfurt green
TIE authority for the statement tina
after the, extraction of the inter fror
gunpowder the residue cannot be drie
at 200 degrees, without a slight loss c
the sulphur, is Fresenius. Herr A
Wagner, on the contrary, rises from hi
experiments with the conviction that n
such loss has eve been observed at c
below the temperature given. Abov
that temperature the residue suffers
notable diminution in weight.