The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1881-09-24

Villari to the conclusion that the lowest
temperature in man, after period Of
rest, is 1874 degrees; that the tempera.
ture increases under the influence of a
positive, ascending effort, to 1905 de.
grees, under the influence of descending
effort to 1908 degrees; that it increases
after any exertion, but more after an
ascending than after descending one
and that the chemical actions of the or
ganism are augmented after every
movement.
Prof. J. L. Budd attributes actual an.
tiseptic properties to the Eucalyptus Clio
bnl"s, which has accomplished so much
in arresting malarial disease on the fatal
Roman Campagna and in other places.
By an application Of the leaves wounds
are healed and foul sores purified. He
recommends the cultivation of the tree
as house plant. He has three year
old plant in all eight-inch pot, which re-
without losing the fine, large leaves Of
the tree
The average descent of large rivers,
exclusive of cascade regions, is seldom
more than twelve inches to the mile, and
and occasionally does not exceed third
Of this amount. From Memphis down, a
distance Of eight hundred and fifty miles,
the Mississippi has a pitch of less than
five inches at low water, and above the
Missouri from it's source, of only eleven
and thrce-fourths inches. The Missouri,
in it's greatest length Of nearly three
thousand miles, descends twenty eight
inches to the mile; but from Fort Ben
ton to st. Joseph, over two thousand
miles, only eleven and one half-inches !;
low St. Joseph to the mouth, length
of nearly five hundred miles. The aver
age pitch Of the Amazon is a little moro
than six inches to the mile; Of the lower
Nile, less than seven; of the lower Gam
ges, about four. The Rhono is notable
for great pitch Of eighty inches per
mile from Geneva to Lyons and thirty
two inches below Lyons to the mouth.
The attempts to explain the tails Of
comets have been various A new effort
to solve the problem has been made by
NJ. Picart, as follows: The sun, the
stars, nebul;e and comets, are composed
not only Of pondorable matter in the
gaseous state, but Of imponderable mat
ter-the luminous ether "-reycaled,
IN the case Of the sun, by the zodiacal
light, and i'll that of nebul:e, by their
irregular forms contrary to gravitation.
A comet far from the sun, appears in
spheroidal form, due to gravitation of
its ponderable matter-its luminous
ether being then invisible because Of its
distance and feeble light. But on near
ing the sun, repnlsion being Il character
istic property Of luminous ether, the
ether of the sun repels that of the comet,
and thus forms tho tail. The form and
direction of the tail are thus quite indie
pendent Of gravitation; and the comets
enormous velocity ceases to be difficult
ty, as it is in theories which suppose the
matter of the tail to be ponderable.
This explanation may account for the
comets tails, but the mystery of the
luminous ether remains.
Physically, the nearest approach to
man in the lower animals is the anthro-
poid ape; but in Intelligence. ants seem
to rank highest in the scale below man.
Reference has often been made to the
habits of species of these insects i'll con-
Quoting battles, capturing slaves, and
their power Of recognizing friends and
Of communicating among themselves.
Various entomolosists have shown them
to possess reasoning powers quite sur
prising. One Of their most remarkable
habits is the practice of many species
Of keeping aphides, rs men keep mich
COWS, to supply a nutritious secretion.
Huber first observed this habit, and
noticed that the ants collected the eggs
Of the aphides and treated them with as
much apparent care as they treated their
own. When these eggs hatch ont, the
aphides arc usually kept and fed by the
ants. Sometimes the stems and branches
on which they live are encased by the
ants i'll clay walls, in which doors are
left large enough to admit the ants but
too small to permit the escape of the
aphides, The latter are therefore i'm
prisoncd In yeritable stables. The sweet
secretion is yielded to the ants by pro-
cess of milking" which consists in the
ants stroking the antcnnae Of the aphi-
tles. Sir John Lubbock has found that
t he eggs of the aphides are laid in Octo-
Der on tho food-plants of the insect,
when they are carefully collected by the
ants and protected in their nests from
the cold of winter. The newly Matched
insects are then, in May, restored to the
plants on which they feed and closely
tended 10y the ants.
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