The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1881-05-20
SCRAPS OF SCIENCE.

/ CERTAIN sounds from a musical instru-
ment will affect the flame from a gas Jet,
causing it to dance about.
IT IS claimed that more rain falls now
in Nebraska than formerly, and that this
rainfall is increasing with the march OF
settlement and consequent cultivation
A MACHINE for making laces hitherto
produced only by hand-work is reported
in France. Even old styles of laces, the
art of making which has been lost, can
readily be produced The machine en-
ploys from 800 TO 1000 spindles, and
from 900 to 300 pins. The Moniteur des
FTis ct IJssu speaks in high terms of the
machine and its products, which isSsaiS
to be fully equal to the best hand>szEJ
laces. ~-r-
AT VARIOUS points in the heavens there
are clusters of stars, some of these con-
tanning as many as 1000 distinct orbs.
Astronomers have established the fact
that the smallest of these stars has a
diameter of 10000 900 of miles-Orbs
compared with which our earth is as an
orange to the dome of St Paurs; and
yet there are thousands of such suns, in
one of these family luminous clusters,
scarcely visible to the eyel
THE effect of the vibrations of sound
is very peculiar. Here is an example:
4 plate of glass or metal may be held
between the finger and thumb at one
corner, having been previously strewn
over with fine sand then a fiddle bow be
drawn near one of its angles the sand
becomes agitated, and finally resolves
itself into the form of a Latin cross. If
the bow be drawn near the middle of one
of the sides, n St. Andrews cross Will be
formed.
In COLORADO is ten-acre field which
is no more nor less than a subterranean
lake covered with soil about eighteen
inches deep. On the soil is cultivated a
field of corn which produces thirty or
forty bushels to the acre. If one will
take the trouble to dig hole the depth
of a spade handle he will find it to fill
with water, and by using hook and line
fish four or five inches long can. be
caught The fish have neither scales
nor eyes and are perch like shape.
METEoRoLoGIsTs have found that
United States storms usually advance
from the Upper Mississippi Valley to-
ward New York and New England, less
frequently toward Virginia and seldom
toward the Carolinas. American storm
centres most frequently pass off the coast
between 45 and 80 degrees north latitude.
The great waves of high barometer, with
fierce northwest winds in their front,
usually advance from the Rock Noun
tains toward Virginia and the Carolnas,
but less frequently toward New England.
BY KEErING the soil beneath charged
with moisture, forest regions tend to
make gradual and constant the supply of
waters to the rivers and give uniformity
TO the flow; and hence, when forests are
cut away, the rains reach speedily the
streams, making them liable to alternate
periods of wasteful violence and worth
the forest has led, in the French Alps, to
uncomfortable floods, despoiled fields and
an impoverished people; and, IN America,
to annual seasons of dry mill-pOnds, an
immense sacrifice of available water
power and the desertion of many mill
site.
WHILE our knowledge of the regions
surrounding the North Pole has been
greatly extended 10y the energy and en-
terprise of modern explorers, compare
lively little has been done in the explo-
ration of corresponding portions of the
southern hemisphere. At the head OF
an American expedition Lieut.. Wilkes
believed that he had established the ex.
istence of an Antarctic continent; an6
this discovery was verified a year later
| by Sir James Ross, who found the exten
sive Victoria Land, with mountains IA, /,
600 feet high and an active volcano.