St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1881-07-23

OF which he has detailed in recent
paper read before the Photographic
Society Of Great Britain. He has
found that if two or more portraits OF
different individuals under exactly the
same conditions are superimposcd, the
features, if not absolutely dissimilar,
will blend together and form an ideal
lied portrait, which may be well seen
when the image is thrown on magic
lantern screen. The peculiarities in
the features of any class of individuals
are thus concentrated, as it were, in one
ideal picture. Mr.. Gallon believes that
composite photographs may prove val
liable for prodncinga standard physiog-
nomy of disease. Portraits of a num-
Der of consumptive persons were COM
blned; and it was remarkable how a
certain average of faces was almost
identical. Ina variety of what he called
typical portraits, Mr.. Gallon showed
that the individuality of each class of
persons represented was strongly
brought out and idealized. He thought
composite photographs might be put ito
an interesting use in the production of
family likenesses. The results obtained
are really surprising.
NJ. Fauvel, of the Paris municipal
laboratory, has discovered hitherto
unsupported source of danger to infants.
The milk which is seldom thoroughly
cleansed from the glass and rubber tubes
of the feeding apparatus undergoes an
alteration, and produces microscopic
vegetable growth in short time. This
observation was confirmed in twenty
eight out of thirty one cases.
1t is hoped that the much mooted
question Of sound produced by the au
rora may be settled by means of balloon
ascents.
To determine the utility of Faure's
new battery for the storage of electric
ity, very interesting experiment has
been made in Paris. A tramcar con-
veyed forty persons at the rate of six
miles an hour, the motive power being
supplied by 100 Faure accumulators of
eighteen pounds weight each. The
trial lasted about an hour, and the
power Of the motor was much dimin-
ished, although not exhausted. As the
work performed could have been done
by two horses, the result was somewhat
less favorable than had been anticipa-
| ted.
| A colossal pine which was recently
uprooted by an inundation in Finland
was found to have 1929 annual rings.
It is estimated that from every square
yard of the suns surface as mucl
heat is emitted hourly as would be pro
duced by the combustion of six tons Of
coal.
In recent letter, M. de Thiersant re-
cords a curious phenomenon witnessed
in Guatemala during eight days of las
February. For some three hours abou
midday, if one looked in the direction
of the sun, there would be seen, at i;
little distance above the ground, multi
tudes of small bodies like snowflake
fitting past, appearing and vanishing
instantaneously. Beautiful rainbov
colors were often observed. The tenn
perature having fallen for some days
many supposed these particles to b
fragments of snow formed in the uppe
atmosphere. The phenomenon, how
ever, proved to be a botanical one. /
was migration of the seeds of certain
plants, which were being distributed b.
the winds. The visual effect was SINH
lar to that which occurs when a sun
beam, entering room, reveals a null
titude of corpuscles invisible withou