The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1883-03-16

Eastern Scientist
A spectrum line ofhelium, the ele-
ment of which no traces have hither-
to been found except in the spectrum
of the SUP, has been discovered by
Mons. Polmieri in. the lava of Mount
Vesuvius.
One of the late finds at Pompeii is
a collection of surgical Instruments,
the extent and nature of which indi-
cate that the practice Of surgery had
attained high development il that
city.
Sir William Thomson accepts DR..
Thomas Reid's enumeration of six
senses--namely, the sense of force, OF
heat, of sound, of light, of taste and
of smell-instead Of the five we have
been accustomed to attribute 20 man.
Ofthe PAT species of cultivated
plants which De Candolle recognizes
as useful, 1919 are natives of the Old
World, rs were furnished by Amerl-
ca, while the original home of only
three is still considered doubtful.
So vast is the weight of the atmos-
phere resting upon the surface of'the
earth that it is not surprising if the
considerable local fluctuations of its
pressure, as shown by the barometer,
produce some effect upon the earth's
crust. 1t has been fonnd by MIR.
BALDWIN Latham that the streams
flowing through the chalk yield an
increased supply Of water when the
pressure upon the overlying earth
is decreasing, and aediminished sup
ply when the pressure is becoming
greater-or, in other words, when
the barometer 10 rising.
From records of the hippopo-
tamuses of the London Geological
Gardens it appears that the max
imum age reached by these animals
is about thirty years.
Mr.. F. J. Faraday has offered a
novel view of disease germs and
epidemics. He states that Pasteur' e
researches show that certain deadly
microbes may by the action of oxy-
gen be modified into comparatively
harmless organisms. Assuming The
change thus demonstrated it appears
not improbable that, on the other
hand, harmless organisms may be-
come altered into disease parasites
when lacking suffioient oxygen; and
Just as this lack of aeration may give
q deadly character to the organisms
so may an abundance of oxygen de-
stroy the virulence Of the germs. A
gale of wind may therefore be more
effective in stopping epidemics than
any amount Of disinfectants-which,
after all, may be really harmful by
reducing the proportion of oxygen
in the air; and 10 is possible to i'm
agine fighting disease with a steam
engine and fan.
Attention was first given to
double stars by Sir W. Herschell,
who discovered a large number of
them. The appearance known as a
double star is of course caused when
two of the heavenly bodies are very
nearly in line with the earth, one
OF them being much farther away
than the other; but repeated obser-
vations have shown that many of
them are really systems in which one
component revolves around the other.
The number of discoveries of double
stars made up to the present time
considerably exceeds 10000.
I'm design submitted for pro-
posed. monument in Rome to the
late Father Secchi, the structure
bears, in addition to a statue Of the
eminent astronomer, several emble-
matical figures. One of these rep
resenting Meteorology, has IN its
hand a gigantic barometer, which
can be seen from considerable dis
tance; while a thermometer on an
equally large scale is held up to pub
lie view by another figure, repre-
senting Physics.
Entomologists in Great Britain
consider the year 1882 to have been
remarkable for the scarcity ofinsects.
The American project of establish
ing common method of measuring
time throughout the world has been
laid. before the French Academy.
Mons. de Chancourtois advocates a
decimal division of the day and of
the circle, the latter to contain four
hundred degrees. As universal
prime meridian, he suggests the
adoption of the meridian of Ptolemy,
about 31.7 degrees from that of
Paris.