The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1881-12-29
scrrxFfFio aiisoEL1ANY.
Compiled for the Leader.

| Compiled FOR The Leader.
The general experience Of observers
has been that the removal Of forests re-
suits in diminishing the size Of rivers
and smaller steams ~tTavefsing the ter
ritory. This effect is often very mark
ed-small streams disappearing entirely
and large rivers dwindling to mere
brooks. Quite a different experience is
reported from New South Wales. A
tract of land embracing the watershed
of three creeks was partially cleared in
| 1870 Soon after, these creeks which
had been dry watercourses for twenty
years-became permanent streams, and
have so continued to the present time.
| The explanation offered to account for
this phenomenon is, that a large pro-
portion Of the rainfall formerly taken
up by the gum-trees and evaporated
now finds its way to the streams.
In 1879, two orsthree eminent British
m~eteorologists expressed a belief in a
''cycle of seasons" of about eleven years
in length. During these eleven years
a period Of heat and drouth occurs, usu-
ally of th~ree.years' duration-that is to
say, the drOoth recurring in three sue
cessive summers. According to this
theory, the last three summers should
have been very hot and drys u Mr..
G. T. Ryves calls attention to the fact
that they have been cold and wet, and
from this concludes that such predict
ions are at best mere scientific guesses,
and when put forth as prophecies often
disappoint those who rely upon them,
while they create q false impression II
the public mind as to what is attain
able in the present state of meteor
illogical science. This conclusion, de-
duced in England, is equally applicable
t o this country. Valuable as is the SER
vice now rendered by meteorology, it
possesses as yet no reliable data from
which to forecast the weather of years,
of seasons, or months.
Prof. Meehan has advanced the the
DRY that the absence of trees upon the
American prairies is due to annual fires,
1t being known that such fires we're
caused by the Indians during a long
period. Herbaceous plants and ANNALS
may increase their area yearly, while
trees were never able to get beyond the
line to which the annual fires extended.
The materials used by the ancients
for producing artificial light were wax
and tallow, oil of various kinds being
also used at a later day. Their candles
and lamps were exceedingly rough and
uncouth, and the light yielded was of
the feeblest description, and gave out
the most disgusting odors. Even up to
the commencement of the present CEN
fury little or ho progress had been
made, gas being unknown, and the per-
fect-burning oil lamps with which we
are so familiar having no existence I'M
til many years later. Gas was first in
troduced in 1902, but as late as 1912
the Haymarket theater, in London,
continued to be lighted by candles.
Mark the contrast. Less than forty
years ago London witnessed the drama
by the dim, Pickering light of foul
smellingcandles while within the past
few days Paris has had the privilege of
listening to the opera beneath the bril-
liant, MONDAY glare of the electric
arci
Prof. Samokvasoff recently gave an
account Of the excavation, near Pyati-
gorst, of about two hundred graves be-
longing to the stone, bronze implements
were found with the stone ones. They
also contained, besides the bones of
sheep, several split human bones not
belonging to skeletons, from which it
is inferred that the people in that part
Of the Caucasus were man-eaters during
the bronze period.
Experiments on the influence of a
current OF electricity upon the growth
Of the grapevine have been made BY
M. Macagno. An electric circuit was
formed by attaching N pole of a bat
terry to the lower and the other to the
upper extremity of a ~fruit-bearing
branch. More wood was formed in the
branch, which contained less potash
than the ether parts, and the grapes
ripened more readily, containing an ex-
cess of sugar.