St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-27
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

When seen from the temperate zone the
aurora borealis appears very high above the
earth's surface, the estimates of its mini
mum height which have been made being
stated to average hardly less than 125 miles.
In the arctic regions, however, the aurora is
often very much lower. A member of the
Danish Circumpolar Station, which was main
tanned at Godthaab in Greenland during the
winter of 1928, reports that his party sever
al times saw aurorae below the clouds, and
even so low and so near that the tops OF low
mountains five or six miles away were seen
above and far beyond them. Other observ-
ors have given accounts of-aurorae which
seemed to be not more than few yards aboye
sea-level. Prof. Streenstrup, an eminent
zoologist, even asserts that while walking in
Iceland in 1910, he and two companions saw
auroral streamers appearing between them
selves, and this occurred several times dur
ing the walk, although the pedestrians kept
only about a yard apart.
Prof. n. Jolly, of the faculty of sciences at
Toulouse, France, thus briefly sums up his
conclusions concerning the original homes
of domestic animals. s'The eastern origin
of certain species now domesticated among
us is open to no manner of doubt. Such are
for example, the peacock, native of India;
the common pheasant, brought from the
banks of the Phasis after the expedition of
the Argonauts; the cock perhaps; and the
silk worm, cultivated in China for nearly
5000 years. a few animals only come to us
from Africa. The guinea fowl, the canary.
and perhaps also the ferret, are instances.
Others, lastly have been imported from
America at a comparatively recent epoch
These are the guinea pig, the turkey, the
musk duck Improperly termed the Barbary
duck, the Canada goose, and the cochineal
from Napal. To Europe belong, in our opin
ion, the dog, the cat, the horse, the ass, the
pig, the OK the goat, the sheep, the rabbit;
among birds the pigeon, the common foul.
the luck, the common goose, the swan, and
among insects the bee.
A piece of phosphorescent limestone from
Utah was recently exhibited to the Philadel-
dhia Academy of Natural Sciences by Prof
H. C. Lewis. 1t emitted lurid red light
when struck, scratched or heated. On seek
ing other specimens of limestone having
such properties it was found that some from
India gave a strong yellow effect when
scratched or struck. These two limestones
have the same external characters which are
different from those of other limestones-a
fact which is of great interest, .as it confirms
Becquerels view that phosphorescence de-
ponds upon physical rather than chemical
conditions.
The first astronomical photograph was a
Daguerrean picture of the sun, which was
taken in France by FiZeau and Foucaulton
| April 2nd. 1845. This was soon followed by
photographs of the moon, obtained in the
United States by Rutherford and in England
! by Warren de la Rue. Later still, Ruther-
ford and Gould obtained Photographic charts
of the stars, and Draper succeeded in photo
graphing the great nebula of Orion In
| 1881 the first photograph of comet with its
tail was secured at Meudon, France The
Photographic plate is now one of the astron-
omer's important instruments of investiga-
ton, enabling him to preserve accurate re-
cords of celestial phenomena, and showing
him many details in the appearance of the
heavenly bodies which even the most power
full telescopes fail to reveal to the eye.
In his presidential address to the Royal
society of New South Wales, Mr.. H. c. Rus
sell, government astronomer, has demon
strated the folly of trying to bring drouths to
an end by firing cannon or building large
fires in the hope that fall of rain might be
thus produced.
| 1t has been recently shown that much
more sonorous tone in stringed instruments
can be obtained with metal strings than with
| those now in use, the best results being Civ
en- by steel wires plated with silver or cop
| per.
+ DR.. Carlos Finlay, of Havana, maintained
that mosquitoes may spread yellow fever, and
reports having seen, under the microscope,
spores and filaments of a particular nature
on the sting of mosquito that had just bit
| ten a yellow fever natient
| The unknown country in the interior of
Australia has just been reduced about 1000
square miles, an area of that extent having
been explored and mapped by Mr.. Charles
Winnicke. Two large rivers and an exten
sive mountain range were discovered near
the Queensland boundary. The ridges
some of them 800 or 400 feet high and very
steep-and so dry was the region that many
long stages of the journey, ranging from 100
to 300 miles each, had to be accomplished
without water.
1t would probably surprise many to be told
| that the sun is thousand times as bright as
the moon, as the unaided eye gives us little
idea of the real difference in the brightness
of the two bodies. According to very care
full determinations by Zollner, the SUMS light
is GIG, 900 times as great as that of the full
moon. The heat received from the two bod
is not in the same ratio, that emitted by the
sun being only 80, 600 times as much as that
of the full moon, as found by Lord Rosse
and Mons. Marie Davy.