The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1883-01-17
CURIOUS. USEFUL AND SCIENTIFIC.

A Council Bluffs man has made two me-
chsnical birds, whose appearance, nova
ments and singing are so natural that the
beholder can hardly believe them artificial.
They are kept in a gilded cage.
The human stomach can stand q mixture
of apples, potatoes, candy, milk. wine, cof-
fee, vinegar, spice, meat, fish, bread, honey,
oysters, beer, water, cake, cider. soup and
grapes, and not rebel Such an experiment
was lately tried in Washington.
A nearly perfect mammoth skeleton has
been discovered by workmen engaged in
makings railroad cutting near Belgrade.
After photographs are taken of the remains
in stu the bones will be carefully removed
to the Belgrade National Museum.
Colasanti and Copranics find from 8
sories of experiments made on dogs that
toxic results are frat produced and then
rapid death after the animals have absorbed
certain quantity of oxygensted water.
The toxic doses vary with the size of the
dog, 2S C. C. proving fatal to one weighing 3
kilos and rs C. C. TO one Of Is kilos.
Algeria is beginning to cultivate on
large scale the wax plant of Carolina and
Pennsylvania. The fruit when gathered is
put into coarse bag, and when plunged
into vessel containing boiling writer the
wsx soon rises to the surface, when it is
skinned off and dried, and subsequently
sold as q substitute for bees wax. the chemi-
cal composition of W en- it very closely re-
sembles. The odoe of the substance is
very agreeable.
AS to the rapid formation Of mineral
! veins, Dr. Fleitmann, of Iserlohn, makes
the following record: Two years age the
1 So stab x@sf ranunaA hard
with common clay containing iron. 1t had
since served for storing dung, water being
thrown in occasionally to prevent over
heating. 1t having become necessary to
have the pit somewhere else, it was found
that the clay had lost ell color, and was d.
vided into Numerous assures, from % to /
inch in width, filled with iron pyrites. The
1 iron oxide of the clay WIS changed by the
organic matter placed upon it, and the wa
ter containing sulphate Of ammonia, into
sulphs,e of iron, which deposited itself in
the ssurss.
i NJ. Pasteur has read G paper on rouge, or
NAL rouge, Of pigs, before the French Acad
envy of Sciences, and the views are we'll
worth the attention of American dealers,
and especially the rsisers of pork. The die
ease he treats Of has been very destructive.
In the valley of the Rhone this year it de-
stroyed not less than 20000 pigs. DIR.
Klein, of London, England, in 1879. gave
an account of it and designated it ''pneumo
enteriis." Pasteur takes exception to
| Kleiu's account of the nature and charac-
teristies of the parasite which produces the
illness, holding that il is of g aguree form
and bearing q close resemblance to that
which produces the cholera of fowls, but is
less easily detected. Inoculstion by 4 di-
luted form of the virus affords protection.
i Some correspondence has occurred IN La
Nature with regard TO statement by de
| Bronsrdeli that q girl who lately committed
suicide by jumping from one of the towers
Of Notre Dame had probably died from as
phyxis caused by the rapid fall. The criti-
cisms have thus been summarized: Ri.
Bontemps points out that the depth Of fall
having been SS metres. the velocity required
in the time (less than four seconds| cannot
have been so great as tina; sometimes attain
ed on rail ways; yet we never hear Of the
ssphyxistion Of engine-drivers and stokers
He considered II desirable that the idea in
question should be exploded, rs unhappy
persons may be led to choose suicide by fall
from height under the notion that they
will die before reaching the ground. Agsia
NJ. Gossin mentions that few years ago q
man threw himself from the top Of the col
umn of July and field on the top of an avn
ing which sheltered work at the pedestal.
He suffered only few Commissions. M
Reny Gays he had seen NJ Englishman leap
4 from a height of 81 metres into deep river
4 unipjured; and he was shown, in 1852, in
the Island of Oahu. by missionaries. ma
tive who had fallen from a verified height
of more than 800 metres, and, his fall bsv-
ing been broken near the end by growth
of ferns and other plants, he had only few
wounds. When asked as to his sensations
in falling, he ssid hs only felt dazzled.