The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1885-10-17
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
A DELICATE GERM.

DELICATE GERM.
The dreaded comma bacillus, the germ of cholera,
has proven to be quite tender organism, which
is quickly killed by drying, by heat of lao de-
grees Fahrenheit, and by many alkalies and acids.
The process of putrefaction also destroys it in a
few hours. In the human body the bacillus lives,
on the average, only six days after the attack in
moist earth it survives from fourteen to sixteen
days; in distilled water, twenty days; in
water, sixty-fou to eighty-one days; and in the
bilge-water of an iron ship, thirty-two days.
After these intervals the danger of contagion
ceases. In common with other disease germs, the
bacillus appears to have remarkable power of
enduring cold.
ToRNADoEs.
In 1884 the Signal Service Bureau recorded
172 tornadoes, occurring on SO days. Only one
month of the year-January-was entirely free
from these storms, while they were most frequent
n ye6Htn% H IF the United States was visited
except New England and the region west of the
summit of the Rocky Mountains. In 81 instances
the width of the tornado path varied from rs to
$3.50 feet, the average being 1,037 feet and in
81 cases the length varied from 2 to $50 miles,
the average being Sc miles. The storms moved
forward at an average rate of AZ miles an hour,
the rotations of the inevitable funnel shaped
cloud being accomplished, of course, at a vastly
greater velocity. The direction of the cyclones
course is usually northeast. It's time is most fire.
quently from four to half-past five o'clock in the
afternoon, rarely as early as three, although not
uncommonly as late as half-past seven or eight in
the evening, and sometimes even later.
ASTRONOMICAL ACCURACY.
Tuttle's comet of 1858, having period of about
fourteen years, makes its nearest approach to the
sun this year, and was seen at Nice on Aug. T.
From observations made during the two former
appearances, Rahts, German computer, calcula-
ted an orbit which agrees with the place in which
the comet has just been found within fifteen
seconds of time and about six minutes of arc so
that, by pointing telescope to the computed
place, the comet would be in the field of view
after an absence of fourteen years.
MAN AS HE SHOULD BE.
Huxley considers mans proper weight to be
154 pounds, made up follows Muscles and
their appurtenances, 6S pounds; skeleton, "a
pounds; skin, 104 pounds fat, 2S pounds; brains,
3pounds; thoracic viscera, 81 pounds abdominal
viscera, ii pounds; and blood which would drain
from the body, z pounds. This man should
breathe 10 times minute, vitiating to the extent
of one per cent. $50 cubic feet of pure air every
"a hours. His heart should beat rs times a min
ute. Through his skin would pass Is ounces of
water, 300 grains Of solid matter and 400 grains
OF carbonic acid every "a hours; and his total
daily loss-to be replaced by proper food-would
be pounds of water and little more than 2
pounds of other matter.
MISCELLANEOUS
The retina of the living eye has been photo
graphed by two English operators. Owing to the
nona ctinic color of the retina, an exposure of
twenty minutes by gaslight was required with an
extra sensitive gelatine plate. Although small,
the negative shows the bifurcation of the blood
vessels, and also the edge of the blind spot.
According to Henry Vivarez, French eectri-
clan, silicious bronze has a conductibility COM
parable to that of copper and a strength greater
than that of iron. For telegraphic purposes sill
cious bronze wires may be used to replace those
of galvanized iron more than five times as heavy.
The use OF nitro-gycerine as a substitute for
alcohol for stimulating the action of the heart has
been recommended by DR.. J. B. Burroughs. The
advantages claimed are, that only minute GUAM
tity is required, that the nitro gycerine is pract
cally free from taste and odOr, that it acts i'm
mediately, and that it is not likely to induce a
craving for alcoholic stimulants.
The seed-vessels of the bird4catching tree of
New Zealand secrete very sticky gum, in which
not merely insects but birds are entangled and
perish.
English physicians have expressed the opinion
that the use of dynamite tends to produce apo
plexy, several miners having fallen victims to the
malady in one district.
Prof. Vulpian, of the Paris Academy of Medi-
cine, repudiates the view that persons can suffer
after decapitation, as he finds satisfactory phys-
illogical evidence that the severing of the head
produces instantaneous loss of consciousness.
Prof. A. Landmark, chief director of the Nor
weglan Fisheries, finds that under favorable con-
dltions salmon may sometimes Jump sixteen
feet perpendicularly, and that when the sh's leap
is foot or two short of the height of the water
fall 1t often succeeds in completing the ascent by
dextrous use of the tall
From experiments in tropical Africa Herman
Soyaux concludes that agriculture is practicable,
the soil-though exhausted in year by maize
and Manufacturing suitable for the cultivation of
coffee, vanilla, India rubber, tobacco, cotton and
sugar-cane. In the Upper Kongo country these
plants and many others grow naturally or are
already cultivated.
disease known in Ceylon as kakke or Jeri5eri
mas been investigated by DR.. W. Taylor, of Osaka,
Japan, and traced to a microscopic spore, which
IS often found largely developed in rice and has
been detected in the earth of certain aluvial and
damp localities.
Two microscopes, DR.. Nussbaum and DR..
Gruber, have artifcially multiplied infusoria by
cutting them in halves, each half becoming per
fectly developed animal. 50