The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1883-02-12
SCIENTIFIC.

If comets in our northern hemis-
phere had been marketable articles,
they would have been quoted at a
low valuation lately, for they have
been nuisance rather than other
wise. Two are visible just now, one
being the brightest aud largest which
has appeared for 20 years past. But
its demands on cur attention are
most preposterous, involving moth
ing less chan getting up little before
in the morning if we wish TO see
it! Of course that is nothing to an
astronomer, but for laymen, why,
one remembers The advice Sheridan
is said to have given his son on his
wanting to 60 down a coal mine,
''just to say he had been down."
Cant you say SO scihtout going
down?' However, this comet can-
not complain of lack of attention.
No other comet chat I am aware of
ever had an emperor for lis observer.
But che Emperor of Brazil has tele-
g;aphed the results of his own
observations upon it TO The Paris
Academy of Sciences. You will see
this celestial visitor i'm your southern
skies even better than we behold it,
for The Emperor of Erazil saw it in
The daytime, and it was also seen in
India. Sodium and carbon have
both been detected in its spectrum.
The most remarkable note on the
comet comes from Mr.. David Gill,
at the Cape of Good Hope, who was
watching lis transit ACROSS the SUMS
disc, buc so brilliant was il chat it
was invisible. In other words. its
light could not be distinguished from
that of the sun.
''Dr. Lancaster, what on earth are
you doing?" said a Why reporter
70 the physician at the city Aims
House yesterday, as that gentleman
wes found administering big dose
of chloform to an old barn-yard
rooster in The hospital dispensary.
'Why, sir, this is the rooster sea-
son, and am going to show chat
both politicians and roosters without
heads can live in this free country"
and lie went to work carefully with
his fine instruments and took off the
birds head just above the ears, and
cautiously gathered Up the muscles,
arteries and veins, and applied chemi-
Gals 20 prevent the flow of blood.
Into The neck of the biped he placed
a glass :ube-a channel through
which 70 introduce food into the
craw-and then put the bird into
box covered with cloth, with hole
in the centre for TIE headtess neck
to go through.
''In few hours" the doctor said,
"this chicken will walk around with
steady step q brairless agent without
sight, thorght or feeling"
And sue enough, the doctor was
light. AT 5 p. m. the chanticleer
wss walking about the floor of the
dispensary with no care as 10 the re-
suit of :he election or rs TO where
or when he would get the next meal.
The Z.lknisz Zee, in Carniola, is
remarkable for the periodical disap-
pearances Of the water every Sum
me-, subteiranean passages serving
as The channels of escape. A rapid
ly-ripening crop of grass end some
quic.,-growing vegetables are gath
cred during the Autumn from the
dry bed of the lake by the neighbour
ing peasants. A letter from Lay
bach rcpoi;s singular accident of
which Shis place was the theatre.
A peasant woman and her daughter
were being conveyed in cart across
;he bed of the lake, which was still
covered with water in some places.
Suddenly The cart eld lis occupants
Were p.ecipitated into a cllasm,
through which the water was being
swallowed down in a great vortex,
and which had not been noticed til!
too lee. With great difficulty the
woman was rescued, but The child
and cart were sucked down into the
abyss below.