The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1885-08-01
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
CULTIVATED PLANTS.


Of some 10000 known species of plants, De
Candolle finds that only about $50 species-cer-
tainly less than 300-are yielded about one-ffth
of these cultivated plants Patagonia and the Cape
of good Hope have furnished none, and Australia
and New Zealand have contributed two less i'm
portant ones only. The original homes of the re-
mainder were very unequally distributed. From
temperate Europe have come cabbages, turnips
carrots, hops oats, raspberries etc. from warmer
Europe and Western Asia, cherries, plums, and
apples; and from the Mediterranean district,
grapes almonds and peoples. The apricot, peach,
sugar-cane and sweet orange originated in China.
Tea was furnished by China, Assam and Man
churia and coffee was given us by Africa. The
olive is native of Syria. India has yielded the
citron, the lemon, the mango, the cucumber, a
kidney bean rice, cotton and black pepper is a
product of the Euphrates region and barley, of
Western Asia. The misnamed Jerusalem arti-
choke came from North America. The tomato
was given us by Peru the potato, by Peru and
Chill and quinine, by Peru and Bolivia. To-
bacco came from Ecuador; the pineapple from
Central America; arrowroot, from tropical parts
of America.
EFFECTS OF COLD.
In the experiments of Coleman and McKen-
drick, as reported to the Glasgow Philosophical
Society, live rabbit survived on hours exposure
to temperature of 100 degrees below zero. 1t
was not frozen, its body heat being reduced only
to 43 degrees. Live frogs became quite solid in
half an hour at 20 to 80 degrees, and in two in
stances recovered from the freezing. Intense cold
for many hours failed to destroy microscopic or
ganisms, whose vitality was simply arrested by
freezing, and was resumed when suitable tenn
perature was restored.
PROLIFIC PLANTS.
An English botanist, Mr.. W. B. Hemsley, refers
to the astonishing yield of seeds by orchids.
Darwin calculated that single capsule of orchis
macuiatG contained $500 seeds, and a single
plant 1S6, 800; so that after deducting $4,000 as
bad there would remain sufficient to cover an acre
of ground, six inches apart. By the same COM
putetion, the next generation would cover space
larger than the isle of Anglesea; and the fourth
generation would yield sufficient seeds to carpet
the entire land surface Of the globe. And yet the
seeds of some orchids are much more numerous,
those in a single capsule of one species being es
timated at /, 756, 40.
NEW FRUIT TREE.
Attention has been called to hitherto unknown
fruit tree which has been found in the southeastern
part of the island of New Guinea. 1t grows to a
height of sixty feet, and bears a large globose
fruit, wholesome and palatable, with flavor re-
sembling that of the pear. Baron Won Mueller,
the Australian botonist, has named the tree Bassa
ErskineanG, and the fruit is known to the natives
as Posi-Posi.
STELLAR NOTION.
The '1fxed" stars are not at rest but their prop
peated observations. In some cases, remarks the
Astronomer Royal for Ireland, the star hardly
appears to move in the course of centuries, al
though in other cases the motion is sufficiently
rapid to be detected with the meridian circle in a
year or even less. Even the most rapidly moving
star, which hurries along with the stupendOus
speed of 200 miles second, is so far OH that 1t
only changes its apparent position about seven
seconds of arc in twevemonth. Nine years
would be necessary for this star to pass across an
equal to single minute, would traverse dis
lance equal to that subtended by the apparent
diameter of the moon. One of the greatest dis
coveries of modern astronomy is that of means
of studying the movements of the stars in the line
of sight With the advent of the spectroscope it
was conceived that the dark lines Of a stellar
spectrum should be shifted more or less to one
side or the other of the place Of the corresponding
lines of the solar spectrum, according to the star
motion to or from the earth and that the amount
of the displacement, considered with reference to
the wave theory of light, should show the speed
of advance or retreat. The theory has proven to
be correct Its application has shown that Sirius
was receding from our system before 1875 about
twenty miles a second, while in 1881 the retreat
was only two miles second, and the star has
since commenced to approach US.
MISCELLANEOUS.
The researches of Fol, French anatomist,
have satisfied him that during the fifth and sixth
furnished with genuine tail.
In recent experiments in Paris it was shown
that human body of average size could be en-
tirely burned in a common stove in forty hours,
without disagreeable smell. This is taken as an
argument in favor of cremation, as it shows that
the process need not be expensive.
It appears that climate is regarded as having
SO much effect upon hearing that English physi-
clans sometimes seek to lessen the deafness of
patients by sending them to the dry parts of New
Zealand.
Europeans find the heat of Algeria great
obstacle to agricultural work, and, to avoid much
of it, they propose making harvests at night by
aid of electric light.
Every spring the cells of certain French lakes
cross several miles of land to reach the Seine and
the Marine.
microscopic, Mr.. Spencer Moore, has shown
that the bacteria which produce or accompany
Sweating of the feet" identical with those pro-
ducing chemical action in the soil. In the latter
situation they reduce the sulphates to sulphites
and the phosphates to phosphites, and in both
situations are instrumental in setting free am
monia.
The grasses of the United States, according to
DR.. Massey, number 12O genera, embracing 675
species.