St. Landry democrat., 1883-04-07

believe They are regions so extreme
1 ly hot, he supposes, that the heat radla-
tons have reached the intensity OF u!-
ira violet fred y rays /; these being IN
visible the spots consequently appear
dark.
| It is proposed to place the islands OF
Mauritius and Reunion in commnlca-
tion with each other by means OF an"op-
tical telegraph" The stations will be-
about 1874 miles apart, and will occupy
an elevated spot on each island. From
either station signals will, by the aid OF
petroleum lamp, be flashed across the
intervening stretch of the Indian Ocean
to the opposite station, where they will
1 be received by a telescopic apparatus
which it is proposed to arrange SO as to
photograph the luminous flashes. IL
successful, this system of signalling IS
texpected to prove of especial value in
sending warnings of the approach OF
cyclones.
According to Prof. Loomis, about
one-ffth of the entire land surface OF
the globe has an annual rainfall of less
than ten inches, and still larger part
has rainfall so small as to make it val
ueless for purposes of agriculture ex-
cept in the limited districts where irri-
CATION is practicable. In North Anleri-
ca an almost rainless regionsis found in
Southern California and Arizona, and
in large district about Slave Lake the
the yearly precipitation of water is on
1 ly about ten inches.
Mr.. F. c. Whitehouse contends that
the caverns of the island of Stafa, in
cluding the famous Fingal's Cave are
artificial, and created by the hand of
man at some very early period. He bases
his theory on the Gothic shape of the
roofs, the sheltered location Of the
caves, the lack of evidence Of erosion OF
the rocks by water, and the insufficient
4 mechanical power Of the sea waves at
that island to excavate such caves.
/ Mr.. Grant Allen has drawn this inn
aginary picture of man as evolutionists
suppose him to have existed in miocene
times: A tall and hairy creature, more
or less erect, but with slouching gait,
black faced and whiskered, with pro-
truding jaws, and large, pointed canine
teeth-those of each jaw fitted into an
Iinterspace in the opposite row. These
teeth, as Mr.. Darwin suggests were
used in the combats of the males. His
forehead was no doubt low and retreat
ing, with bony bosses underlying
the shaggy overbrows, which gave him
a fierce expression something like that
of the gorilla. But already, in all like
lihood, he had learned to walk habit
ually erect, and had begun to deVel-
oped a human pelvis, as well as to carry
his head more straight
Mons. Paul Bert, the French physi-
ologist, has discovered that the blood
Of herbivOrous animals acclimatized at
high elevations contains much larger
proportion Of oxygen than the blood of
similar animals living in regions but
little above sea level.
/ In a recent paper Prof. Willis De
Haas stated that all the mines of the
Lake Superior region give evidence
of having been worked bya prehistoric
race, and that a greater amount Of la
Dor had been performed by those an
cient miners in q space Of less than two
thousand acres than two thousand men
could do in twenty years in our time.
Ithas been found that water saturated
with alum is remarkably efficient in
extinguishing fires. This property is
supposed to be due to the coating it
gives to objects wet with it, which pre-
vents contact with the oxygen Of the
air, and thus retards combustion. It is
reported that, as an experiment, French |
firemen are to be quite extensively sup
Piled with instruments for throwing
such solutions of alum. ,s.
That great room for improvement in
the use Of gas exists is shown by DR..
G. w. Siemens, who says: "The amount
of light given out by a gas flame de-
pends on the temperature to which the
particles Of solid carbon in the flame
are raised, and DR.. Tyndall has shown
that of the radiant energy set up in
such q flame only the twenty fifth part
is luminous i; the hot products of COM
bnstion carry off at least four times as
NJ, r1ah nnnrru q ID rodiaf fn1 81, 4ha+8 -