The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1885-02-14
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.



The beech, according to Mons. Hansen BLANC
sted, is suppanting other trees in the forests Of
Denmark. Its resdiest conquests are made in its
struggle with the birch, which is rapidly disap-
pearing before it, and which now forms forests
only where the soil is too poor to support the
beech. The earliest forests of the country were
mainly composed of aspens, with which the birch
was apparently associated; but the soil and
climate improved the fir appeared ingreat num-
bers, and ruled for centuries. The first place was
then gained by the holm oak, which is now-like
the birch and the fir, but more slowly re-
placed by the beech. The superiority of the beech
seems to lie in its power of growing in the shade
of any trees, while other trees are unable to de-
velop in the shadows of its own dense foliage.
RAINFALL.
Considering its extent, America is better sup
piled by the clouds than Europe and Africa. In
the tropics of the Old World the annual rainfall
is about " inches, while in tropical South America
it is 155 inches. In the eastern United States it
is 40 to so inches; bit west of the one hundredth
meridian to the Sierra Nevada it is mostly y to
16 inches. The annual average of Great Britain.
is 35 inches that of France, 20 to 81 inches but
about the Alps it is mostly IS to so inches. Farther
from the coast, in Central Germany and Russia,
it is only Is to 20 inches. The moistest climate
known is in India, at Cherrapongee where over
small area the yearly fall of rain is morethan 610
inches, or about 81 feet.
MORE NEW BATTERIES.
Electric batteries are multiplying new
primary call, devised by DIR. Pabst of Stettin,
operates by the consumption of iron the electrodes
being carbon and wrought iron dipping into
solution of chloride of iron. This call is attracting
much attention in Germany, and it is expected to
prove valuable in domestic electric lighting. In
another primary battery-that of Profs. Bartoh
and Papasogi-the popularity is that the carbon
is consumed, the electrodes being platinum and
GORDON and the exciting liquid hypochlorite of
soda.
LIGHTNING IN THE TROPICS.
To confirm other experience of tropical thunder
storms, Mr. ]. J. Meyrich reports that very few
persons or buildings ever injured by lightning
in the plains of India, although, at the commence
ment of the monsoon, storms occur in which the
lightning runs like snakes all over the sky at the
rate of three four flashes second, and the
thunder often without a break for an hour
or at time. He supposes the rarity of ac-
ciden.s to be due to the great thickness of the
stratum of heated air and its effect in keeping the
clouds high that most ofthe electrical discharges
pass from cloud to cloud and very few reach the
earth. Confirmation Of this view is found in the
observation that in mountains and in colder eli
mates, where the clouds approach nearer to the
earth's surface, much greater damage is done by
lightning.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Mons. 0nimus has reported to the French Acad-
envy of Sciences that the cholera epidemics OF
Paris and Marseilles we're attended BY low pro-
portion of ozone in the atmosphere, and that the
administration of ozone produced favorable results
in cases of the disease.
Pasteur, the great French chemist, devotes his
entire time to original research, although he re-
ceives q salary equivalent to 81, 900 year as
scientific director of the Superior Normal School
of Paris. Koch, the eminent German ply siologiSt,
is provided with laboratory by the government,
and is paid sum equal to 81, 500 per annum.
A German mining engineer, Herr j. Muller,
brings light coins up to the standard weight by
the electro deposition of metal upon them. Un-
less it is necessary to add considerable to the
weight, this process-simpy forming thin and
uniform coating-does not deface the characters
upon the coin.
A French Archaeological, Mons. SaIlard, has
discovered the workshop of prehistoric armorer
in a steep rock on the coast of Brittany. The
workman lived in the stoneage, and his skeleton
was found among the various stone weapons and
implements upon which he had been working.
Most experiments with hydrochlorate of cocaine
have been confined to mucous surfaces, like the
eye and the mouth. By applying it under the
skin, however, Mons. j. Grasset has found that
the new anaesthetic may be made to produce
local insensbiity in any part of the body, the
duration being sufficient for various Surgical oper
ations.
An English observer has reached the conclusion
that the musk beetle (ArOmia moschdt0) has the
power of emitting or suppressing its odor at
pleasure, but that when dying the scent is contin
uous and very powerful. He mentions case in
which a scent of roses has been known to proceed
from the human body in fatigue and weakness.
Similar instances are given by another writer.
In Cape Colony the extensive planting of the
common tomato is recommended, as it is alleged
that insects shun the land on which it is grown.
The suggestion is made, however, that the
same effect may not beprodueedin cooler countries.
Liquefed oxygen is lighter than water, and a
little heavier than alcohol, according to French
chemist, who has calculated its specific gravity
as 1888.
An Australian naturalist has discovered the
nervous system of the sponges. SIS