The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-10-17
ouP'ie" i'i m fRAvKLEE
 SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.


 A bequest of SIo coo has been left to the Paris Geogr aphical society for the pur- pose ot providing an annual prize for the best geographical work either map or book published during the year.
 Arsenic having been found to act as preventive of malarial fever. Mir. w. Mattieu Williams has suggested that the generally condemned arsenical wall papers may be useful as protection against the dangers of regions subject to malaria.
 A singular case in charge of Dr. Strumpell, of Leipsig, few years ago, was that ot young man in whom brain disease had destroyed all sens sibility to touch. and also the functions of one eye and one ear. lbe youth was wide awake, conscious and intelligent when the remaining eye and ear were open, but at once became unconscious when they were carefully closed.
 Use of Solar Power.-In new French apparatus the heat of the sun falling upon metallic plates tightly covering thin layer ot volatile liquid, like ammonia. is com
 
 geneTfte power for pumping. With plates having surface of forty square yards such an apparatus would hourly raise 7q2 gallons ot water 6 feet in warm climates, and at Auteuil raises over 800 gallons per hour.
 Hydrophobia Must Go.-Pasteur has .ong been experimenting with inoculation as means Of preventing hydrophoba, and is now putting tie final touches to a method which he IS confident will assure to animals including man-exemption from Ire terrible disease. He intends to put his system in practice at once, ard has already added to his many trials one upon human sutiect-a little boy who had received several bites from mad dog.
 t6e Camphcr Supply While only 225 miles long and g wide, the island of For mosa, just conquered by the French, is very valuable for its richness in animal and-yeee- table lie One of its products is camphor, ot which it is the worlds chief source of supply, although tke tree (Laurus camphoral also grows in Borneo, Sumatra, Japan and China. The camphor is distilled from the hnely cut wood in gently heated crucibles. the vapors being condensed upon a network of rice stem.
 Suicide in Nature. Man is not the only animal that suicides. Her1ings and other hshes have sought death by rushing ashore Tn myriads regiments of ants, by de- liberatelY marching into streams swarms of rats, by migrating in the face of their deadly nI mense clouds straight out to sea. It would be inter esting to learn the causes of such caseS Of apparent wholesale and deliberate eN-destuction. Is the act purely con 'clous one, or are the creatures victims of iisease-mental or physicall
 Using the Ear'h's Heat.-There is reason for believing that the earth's rust IS very thin, asserts MT. l. Starkie iardner, and it seems not impossible that ome means may be devised for utilizing the ntense heat of the molten mass below. This s already being done. in fact, to some ex- ent, an artesian well having been bored at 'esth 10 obtain warm water for public baths. 'tc. From depth of about 5000 feet a arge quantity of water heated to I61 degrees 'ahrenheit pours forth, and the boring is to 'e continued until water at I7a degrees is ielded.
 Molecular Minuteness.-The odorifer- JUS particles which affect the organs of meI must be incon ceivably small. Espec- ally is this true of musk, which constantly 'miis powerful odor for many years, and is aid to show % apparent loss of weight. Papers perfumed with a single grain of ann 'ergris were kept by Haller for forty years, 'hen the odor was as strong as ever. The nolecule of camphor sensible 10 the smell las been estimated by Rordenave to weigh me ? a62 5S+,ocoth of a grain. Keil has con- lu ded that drachm of asafetida exposed o the open air loses one 6 Ieoth of grain n weight each minute, or one S3oth of it's ntige weight in day
 What tue Star Tells.-Proctor con- iders il a mistake to regard the new star ia he Andromeda nebula as supporting the lee ular hypothesis of Laplace, as that cele- 'rated guess at world origins calls only for ,hanges in nebuious matter so slow as to be The real truth taught by the udden bursting forth of this star is that the Andromeda nebula is not, as many as- rosomers suppose, vast galaxy of brilliant uns so distant as not to be receivable by the most powerful telescopes, but that it is sim 'ly star-cloud forming part of our own .aiaxy or universe. And what is true of the nebula is probably SO of others, 10 that it may be concluded that none ofxhs iebulae or star-clouds are external to our 'wn galaxy. and that the ether galaxies of which so much has been written do not exist.