The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1885-02-21
Correspondence Baltimore County Onion.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
THE tongues FUNCTIONS.

THE TONGUES FUNCTIONS.
"The tip of the tongue" remarks Grant Allen,
sis concerned mainly with pungent and acrid
tastes; the middle portion is sensitive chiefly to
sweets and bitters while the back or lower por-
ton confines itself almost entirely to the avors of
roast meats, butter, oils and other rich or fatty
substances. There are very good reasons for this
subdivision of faculties in the tongue, the object
being, as it were, to make each piece of food un-
dergo three separate examinations, which must be
SUCCESSFULLY passed before it is admitted into full
participation in the human economy. The first
examination gets rid at once of substances which
would be actively and Immediately destructive to
the very tissues of the mouth and body the second
discriminates between poisonous and chemically
harmless food-stuffs; and the third merely decides
the minor question whether the particular food is
likely to prove then and there wholesome or in
digestible to the particular person"
INDEsrRUcrIBLE LIFE.
A matter of surprise and wonder to those who
witness it for the first time is the rousng to life
of whole colonies of infusora by the addition of
drop of water to q few grains of earth or dust
These microscopic organisms abound everywhere
in water containing decomposing vegetable or an
imal matter, and some forms may, in dried state,
remain for months or even years apparently dead,
to be revived when water is again supplied to
them. Mr.. Jabez Hogg has been experimenting
during the past three years with one form of in
Ausoral life-the rotifer or wheel animacules-
and has even kept dried specimens for time at
a temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and
after ward exposed them to intense cold, neither
process killing them nor greatly diminishing their
vital powers. Mr.. Hogg supposes that as the an.
imal dries it shuts itself up like telescope, its
skin taking an egglike shape, and that secreting
organ coats the body with gelatinous envelope
which protects it from further change.
WHY BOILERS EXPLODE.
ko;I hou
ing been attributed to the sudden and explosively
violent flashing into steam of superheated water,
the French Academy of Sciences appointed a COM
mittee year or more ago to investigate the sub
ject. That committee has since made many care
full experiments, using pure and impure water,
water which had been long stagnant, and water
from which the air had been driven by long boil
ing, and generating steam by rapid and by slow
firing. As a result the conclusion has been
reached that if any boiler explosion has occurred
through superheating it must have been through
the concurrence of exceptional circumstances,
which are neither defined, known nor suspected.
The experiments have shown conclusively that,
however unaccountabe explosions sometimes ap-
pear, the real must be looked for in the SIM
pie loading of the boilers with steam pressures be-
yond their strength.
THE EARTH's INTERIOR.
DR.. NJ. E. wadsworth finds that the assumption
tic, liquid interior, irregularly interocked with
and gradually passing into lighter heterogene-
Gus crust" accords better with geological facts
than any other of the various hypothesis thus far
advanced. Contractions and upheavals of the
crust, resembling in their effects what is some-
times seen in ce would satisfactorily explain vol
canic and earthquake phenomena.
MISCELLANEOUS.
An astronomical observation of an earthq Jake
was lately made by the director of the observatory
at Nice France. He was watching one of Saturn's
moons at the moment of the shock, and the mo-
ton impaired to his telescope caused the celestial
object to appear to move some fifteen or twenty
seconds to the right.
The plan of electrically transmitting power has
been in practical operation for more than eight
months at Bienne, Switzerland. turbine and
dynamo convert the power Of q mountain torrent
into electricity, which passes wires some 500
feet to a receiving dynamo furnishing two shops
with their required six to eighteen horse power.
After ten years of experiment, the superinten-
dent of the porcelain factory at Sevres, Mons.
Lauth, thinks he has produced porcelain iden-
teal with that of China, and far superior to the
famous old Sevres.
German research has shown that the mellowness
of old wine is due to an increase in its proportion
of glycerine.
European observer, Dr. Ochorowicz, believes
that he has found evidence of the existence of a
magnetic sense" 1t is stated that by hanging
magnetic tube-called hypnoscope-from the
index finger he realizes peculiar sensations, some
what resembling the effects produced by the action
of the air in front of an electrical machine.
De Candolle, the French botanist, suppOses that
agriculture had its origin in three widely separa-
ted regions, namely, China, Southwestern Asia
and Egypt, and the highlands of Mexico and Peru.
The value of sulphate of iron plant food
has been tested by an English chemist, Mr.. A. B..
Grifiths. The use of fifty pounds per acre in
creased the yield of beans from % bushels to Al,
of turnips from 13 tons to 164 but produced little
effect on cereals.