Morris tribune., 1884-04-30
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

Prof, Reinsch states that copper and
silver coins in circulation soon become
covered with bacteria and microscopic
algae.
Western chemical science is being
adopted in China. \ large sulphurlc
acid factory has just been established
and two English chemical text books
have been translated into Chinese.
Mr.. T. j. Savery has called the at
tention of the London Chemical So
cietv to hitherto unnoticed conStit
uent of tobacco, for which he pro-
poses the name tabacotannic acid.
Another astronomical observatory
has been added to the small number
in eNiStance in the southern hemis-
phere. 1t has been established by the
government of Natal, South Africa,
at the capital of the colony, and q
private citizen has donated telescope
having an eight-inch object glass.
At a late meeting of the Royal
Microscopical Society, of London at
tention was called to the existence Of
the two societies containing only
lady microscopists. One of these was
last year incorporated in San Fran
cisco as the California MicroscOpical
Society, and the other comprises stu
| dents of Wellesley College.
To the very abundant and harmless
appearing Mexican weed tolOachi,
much resembling our northern milk
| weed, most dangerous properties are
ascribed. 1t does not kill, but if a
few drops of it's tasteless fluid be
taken the brain is Immediately affect
ed, the result being violent insanity
followed by hopeless idiocy.
| The researches of Dr.. A. B. NJ. Lam
| caster have shown that the life of the
| astronOmer-quiet and regular-is
conducive of longevity, the average
life-term Of I74I astronomers having
been found to be 64 years and three
! months, while the most diligent of
| these students appear to have enjoyed
the longest lives.
The time required for the formation
of mineral Veins appears to be much
| less than has been generally supposed.
! A ditch which was filled up two years
ago with common clay containing
iron has just been opened again by Dr..
| Fleitman, who has found, to his great
surprise, that the clay has become
white and is permeated by cracks
| filled with compact iron pyrites, these
veins being from a twenty-fifth to a
sixth of an inch in thickness.
Besides proving that the so-called
| bacilli of cholera are the actual cause
| of the disease. DR.. Koch has dis
covered that these germs are quickly
destroyed by drying, and that they
will grow only in alkaline solutions.
Even the healthy somach appears to
contain sufficient acid to resist their
| DEVELOPMENT, infection with cholera
probably taking place during some
gastric disturbance. With know
ledge of these facts some means of
preventing cholera ought soon to be
found.
The famous book of travels of
Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller of
the thirteenth century, tells of the
| feathers of q m0nStrous African bird
| known as the Roc, and mentions a
speciman sent from Madagascar to
| the Great Khan as being ninty spans
in length and having quill two spans
Col. Henry 7 ule that these SO-called
feathers were frond of the rofia palm.
The British consul at Zanzibar has
lately forwarded to London four of
mid-ribs of this tree, stripped of their
leaflets and with their tips broken off.
and they are said to greatly resemble
enormous feathers from twenty y-five
to thirty-fve feet long. This palm,
called in Central Africa the Devils S
date. is credited by Captain r. F.
Burton with producing the largest
leaf known.
In a recent lecture DR.. P. III. Car
penter. of Eton College, mentioned
the case of Greenland as an illustra-
tion Of the manner in which the earth s
history is read from fossils, those
remains of by-gone life which in the
Middle Ages were regarded as ''sports
of Nature. Fossils of four climates,
all warmer than the present icy one,
are found in that country. Remains
of the oak and the maple tell us that
the climate was once very similar to
that of England to-day, and the coal,
found lower down, shows that some
thing approaching tropical heat pre-
vailed at an earlier period. The fos-
sils of certain sea creatures appear on
the land, and prove that Greenland
once lay beneath the sea and that it's
water was temperate; while the coral,
obtained still lower down, must have
grown when the waters were still
warmer.
WASHINGTON WOMEN.