Morris tribune., 1883-08-22
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

over thirty-siX years, a writer In
German scientific journal concludes
that the wheat crop is mainly deter
mined by the state of the weather in
July and Augustine higher tenn
perature and the smaller the rainfall
in those two months the better the
harvest. The best harvest was of 1868,
with a temperature for the two months
4. | Fahrenheit degrees above the
average, and rainfall of 2. II inches
below the average, while the poorest
yield was that of 1860, with deficiency
of temperature of 4. 6 degrees, and an
excess of 2. inches of rain.
The plan of burying in the earth
animals which have died of Charlton
or other contagious disease is unsafe,
as the disease poison may find its way
through the soil and reach other
creatures. Mons. Anne Girard has
experimental with a method of dis
posing of such dead bodies by dissolv-
ing them in concentrated sullphurlc
acid. The acid is capable of dissolv-
ing more than two-thirds of its weight
of animal matter, and the result
ing black, sirupy liquid may be used
to advantage for making fertilizers.
IliC dCiu CIlCcIuailJ uCoeioJo oA
disease germs.
DIR. w. It. Bedfield has discovered
that crystals characteristic of lard and
tailow can be obtained by evaporating
solutions of these fats in ether. The
lard crystals yielded are rhomboidal
plates with beveled ends, while those
of tallow are plume-shaped and curved
like an italic f. This difference of
crystals gives very simple means of
testing lard, and has enabled the dis
coverer to testify in court that a given
sample contained no tallow.
Mons. Daubree has analized me-
teorite which fell in the province of
Entire Rios, Argentine Republic, and
finds that it contains iron, lime, mag
nesia, and carbon in an organic form.
The last discovery leads him to hope
that he may some day find organic
remains in meteorite. 1t may be
| recollected that Sir William Tomson,
in 1871, suggested the idea that even
| living organic germs may have been
| brought to the earth by meteOrites,
and that the present animal and vege-
table life of our planet had its origin
in the germs thus introduced. This
speculation givesa special interest to
any remains or other evidence tending
to show that meteorites or the worlds
of which they may have once formed
part ever bore living forms.
By comparison ofanalysis of soils
from different vineyards, the last re-
port of the Scottish Horticultural AS
ISOLATION shows that the soils on which
the grape-crops fail are deficient in
lime and potash.
Deaf-mutes have been taught to
speak and to understand speech by
noticing the movements of the lips.
1t is stated that Mons. Wanerke has
produced photographs showing the
form assumed by the lips for eacd
sound, and that pictures have enablee
inexperienced persons to recognize
the different articulations. Such pho
tographs ought to be of great value in
giving instruction TO deaf-mutes.
DR.. Werner Siemens has demons
trated by eXperiement that intensely
hot gases do not emit light, and that
consequently, all light, given by
heated gas must come from solid i'm
puTities, and not from the gas itself.
For ten or twelve years new form
of potato disease has been slowly but
steadely spreading in southwestern
Norway, and is now reported to be ex-
tending it's ravages with increasing
energy. On the stalk of the plant,
which is the part affected, Herr Anda
has found funguoid growth, which
is successfully white, greenish and
black in color, and which attains the
sise of a small bean. The develop
ment of the fungus causes the interior of
the stalk to dry up and disappear, leav-
fng only the outer shell. The fungus
is most active near the close of July
or the beginning Of August, when
whole fields ofpotato plants are often
quickly reduced to the condition of
withered straw.
The mineral waters of France, &C,
cording to the Minister of Public
works in that country, come from 1927
sources. Of these springs $40 ferrug-
inous, and 915 saline 1856 are cold
the temperature being below sixty de-
grees Fahrenheit-and 641 are warm.
The entire flow of water from 1927
sources is estimated at 46,412 liters
(over $4,000 gallons) per minnie.
Ina paper in the Bulletin of the
Paris Anthropological Society, Mons.
G. Langneau has considered the re-
lations of deaths and births among
Catholics, Professionals and Jews,
He finds the births to be in greatest
proportion among Catholics, but the
death-rate is so large among their
children that they increase in popu-
lation but slowly. With Professionals
the births are fewer, infantile NOR
tality is lower, and increase is often
much greater. The Jews have fewer
births than either of the other classes,
but their death-rate is so low for all
ages that they increase in numbers
more rapidly than either Catholics or