The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-08-16

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 SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
 Prof A. H. Sayce has deciphered ar Assyrian record of a transit of Venus in the sixteenth century before the Christian era.
 Some experiments in getting coal with out the aid of explosives are to be made in England by members of the Royal Commission on accidents in mines. Dr. Y. Poulain believes that cows milk disagrees with children because cane sugar is used to sweesen it. With sugar of milk he gets the best possible results.
 4 recent estimate, made by means of very intricate testing apparatus, places the rate at which an electric dot travels over a telegraph wire at I6,ooo miles per second.
 Meteorological observations from a captive balloon, which ascends 10 a height of from Goo to I,ooo feet, have been organized by Father Denza a. the Turin exhibition.
 An apparatus has been employed at Harvard college for recording every change in the electricity of the air, and the degree of change. The observations are expected to furnish valuable indi- cations of weather changes. Among some curious results of a spec troscopic study of gases, the astron- omer-royal for Scotland mentions the fact that the spectrum of nitrogen indi- cates it to be a compound, while oxygen and hydrogen act like simple substances.
 According to Dr. Spencer Cobbold, many "scares" have been originated by writers unfamiliar with parasites who have described as trichine some of the vast number of comparatively harmless little worms which live in birds, beasts and fishes.
 After careful and laborious investi- gation, Dr. Edgar Holden concludes that death from consumption, instead of be- ing, as is almost universally supposed, most prevalent in early adult life in this country. is in reality not so, but grows relatively more frequent as life advances.
 The importance of the analyses made at the Paris Municipal laboratory is now so well appreciated that forty persons are required for testing samples of foods, liquors, etc., for adulteratisns or impuri- ties, while similar institutions have been established in other French cities, with a central administration in Paris.
 Naturalists have long known of carni- vorous plants that enuap insects. I, is now stated on the authority of Prof. Baird, that a bladderwoTt which has hitherto been carefully introduced into the governments carp ponds as food for the fish has, very curiously, turned out to be a fish-eating plant, devouring the very animals which were expected to feed upon it.
 Pyramids of instruction" so called, have been erected at Weimar, Munich, and other German towns. The faces show the elevation of the place, the diff ference of local time from that of the chief cities of the world, the population, and variety of statistical information, while there are also exposed to public view, a clock, thermometer, barometer and wind-vane.
 Gum.-A Dutch scientist Dr. Beijer- inck, has found that the gum which col- lects on the branches of certain trees- especially the cherry, peach, plum and others bearing stone fruits-is due to dis ease of the tree. The disease is pro- duced by . highly organised fungus, whose action causes the formation of the gum, and it is quickly reproduced in sound trees when they are inoculated with pieces of the gum containing any of the fungus. This knowledge of the na- ture of gum may enable fruit-growers to protect their trees from a troublesome contagious disease, while it also indicates that the product of valuable gums, like arabic and uagacanth, which are pro- duced in the same manner. may be largely increased by a simple system of cuitiva- ton by inoculafion.
 Flying Machine.-To accomplish aigh. according d Mr. Richard A. Proctor, advantage jmua be taken of motion athwars the ', this motion being in the hrss place eoua punicassd while the aeronaut or hyiag-a kcAins is oa the ground. Given an asqua,s velocity,