The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-07-05
Cenfilei foy 7ze .1yksnsev TrsvsIsy.
 SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

A Breslau patholosist has been sen, to Honolulu to study leprosy and the ba- C llus of the disease.
 German experiments have proven that sea-mud is a much better fertilizer for rye and oats than farm-yard manure.
 It has lately been suggested that Amerca should have a meteorological society for advancing weather science. Such an association founshes in Eng land, and one was founded in Germany last year.
 The French Minister, of Education and the Fine Arts has proposed placing large government domain, located at Villeneuve-Etang, a, ihe disposal of Mons. Pas,eur, for the prosecution of his scientific investigations.
 By new process of treating petro- leum tars, French chemist has extracted A new wax-like substance, 10 which the name petreoline has been given. It has antisepsic properties, and is said to be valuable as food preservative.
 Specimens of vegetable carbon which have been made conductive and incom- bustible by being strongly heated in an atmosphere free from oxygen, have been exhibited to the Electro-Chemieal So- ciety of Berlin. This artificial graphite does not assume the crystalline structure of the native mineral.
 A plan, called kappe, indigenous to lava, was exhibited a short time ago at Amsterdam. When its fibre is carefully prepared i, resembles wool, and when curled it forms an inexpensive stuffing for mattresses. It may also be spun and dyed, and with improved methods of treatment may prove valuable as textile material.
 The researches of Dr. F. w. East. an English physician, have shown that in- lection may be conveyed n a moist and quiet atmosphere from smallpox hos pitals to houses in the vicinity. Other observers are inclined to believe that other diseases which are known to be spread by the air owe their transmission solely to the influence of moisture.
 Mons. E. E. Blavier, the eminent French electrician, associates earth cur rents-which at times so powerfully affect telegrAphic operations and the mariners compass-with trade winds, and thereby indirectly with the sun. He favors De la Rivers theory that the aurora borealis is due 10 the circulation of electric currents in the higher regions of the atmosphere.
 Although the present theoretical limit of visibility with microscopes is fixed at i46,5,S lines ts the inch, Mir. E. Bausch remarks that there is no reason why we should not attempt to pass this point. The limit which was accepted some years ago as the tvue one was considerably lower, and most microseopists refused to believe that test object having 100000 lines to the inch could be resolved, while it is now the work of beginners to do SO.
 Dr. John Rae, F. R. S, has noticed that mild winter in England is usually associated with much ice in the temper ate regions of the Atlantic. Some force seems to send unusual quantities of water from the north, deHec.ing the gulf stream southward and causing its warming in- Auenoe to be felt along an increased ex- tent of the European coast. While west ern Europe is thus made milder, the ice in the western Atlantic must give to much of Canada and the United States an ex- ceptionally cold season
 Plant Migration by RaiL-The remark able fact has just been demonstrated that railways may be the means of enriching the fora of places through which they pass The extensiou, in 1878, of an inn portans road into the province of Hel- singland, Sweden has been followed by the immisrasioa along the line of no less than seven species of plants which were before unknown in districts where they nov appear. One species seems to have ben spread twenty miles along the rail- ways cosrss in 1882, and about oae de- gree during the last four yeas.
 Northern Lights in loeland.-Dr. So- phas Tromholt reports that the electrical forces vhich produce the ausOsa boreals have vesy E1ie snergy in Iceland, ac- cording to his observations last winter af 1 Reykjavik. For this reason, probably, ]