Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1885-09-05
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Mount kosciusko, 7,171 feet high, was
hitherto considered the highest peak of
the Austrian Alps. DR.. Lendenfeld has
recently discovered another higher noun
tain, which he named Mount Clarke, and
which he found to be 1856 feet high.
The D limit of trees Upon it is 5, 800
feet. Above $500 feet patches of snow
are formed On the lee side of the noun
tain range,
Mulhall. in his ''Progress Of the
World writes that in effect the inven-
ton Of machinery has given mankind an
accession Of power beyond calculation.
The United States. for example, make a
million sewing machines yearly, which
can do as much work as formerly re-
CURED Il, coo. 900 women working by
hand. 4 single shoe factory in Massa-
chuSetts turns out as many pairs Of boots
as 80, 900 bootmakers in Paris.
Some time ago the discovery was made
by NJ. CHI. Montigny, by means OF q
beautiful instrument called the scintillo-
meter, that blue largely redominates in
the twinkling Of the stars when there IS
much water in the atmosphere, and that
the preponderance of green or violet is
indicative of great dryness. A late series
Of tables by this Brussels savant indicates
that he has hit upon a law by which a
wet or a dry season mav be predicted
with great certainty.
ON a clear night about 5000 stars are
visible to the naked eye. A like num-.
Der III the opposite hemisphere makes a
total Of about 5000 that can be seen
without a glass. These are divided, &C
cording to their apparent brightness, IN
to SIX classes, twenty ranking as first
magnitude stars, sixty-five as second
magnitude, 200 as third, $50 as fourth,
LOO as fifth, and about 4, 900 as sixth.
The teles copic stars, unseen by the an
aided eye on account of their remoteness,
are classified as high as the fourteenth
magnitude, and their number is vastly
greater, being reckoned as high as 2O,-
000. 900.
Schroeder, in Germany, has been in
ve,tigating the influence upon vegetation
of the acid fumes which are present in Il
smoke-ladcn atmosphere. He finds that
one part Of sulphurons acid in "a, 900 Of
air is capable of occasioning serious
! damage to pants in a short time. They
are less sensitive to hydrocloric acld.
COnl1erols trees ale most sensitive to
sulphurous acid, then deciduous trees,
while ordinary field plants resist longest.
Oaks, p anes, Gins, poplars and moun
tain ashes resist better than birclIes and
bceches. Fruit trees are very sensitive;
plums and cherries more so than pears
and apples.
Professor Joseph Prestvich, of the uni
vcrsity of Oxford, argues that the earth
must consist of Il solid nucleus, surround
ded by a molten stratum of no great
thickness, which in turn is inclosed by
a crust which may be less than twenty
miles IN thickness. He does not regard
the expansion Of Watcr-Whlch can hard
" penetrate to a greater depth than
seven or eight miles-as 4 primary cause
of volcanic action. The presence of
aqueous vapor is due alone to the surface
and underground waters encountered by
the lava IN lis passage to the surface,
and, while it adds greatly to their VIC
lence, it does not originate the eraptions.
The contraction Of the earth from cool
ing, slow though it be, is sufficient to
account for the forcing out Of lava. Cor
dier having long since calculated that
five volcanic erurtions actually would
shorten the carth's radius only about
one stWentv-tifth Of an inch in a cen
turv.