The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-06-10
CURIOUS, USEFUL AND sCIENrIFIO.

a very strong solution of salt, applied
boiling hot, will kill insects and preserve
wood.
a remarkable property of the ice plant is
its absorption of salt fluid exuded by its
leaves having been found to contain 3S per
cent of sea-salt.
A table giving The price of gas In ninety
five OF the principal cities OF the United
States shows q total range in price of from
ninety cents to 81 per ZOO feet. The lowest
price is in Wilkesbarre, Pa and Wheeling
w. Va, near the heart of the coal regions,
and the highest rules in Galveston and San
Antonio, Texas, new places and far removed
from coal.
A brick being about as porous as q lump
OF sugar and having six sides, it needs care
full filling for water-tight work in cssspools
etc, aida thin grout or porridge Of cement
is commonly used. Heating the brick and
soaking beforehand in thick coal tar has
been recommended. A man may lay COM
mon wall all his life without learning how to
make brick water.tight.
An experiment has been made at South
Kensington to determine the degree OF heat
which various fishes may endure, The wafer
containing them was slowly warmed, when
individuals of the several species were pros
tTated at the following temperature: Perch,
81 degrees; roach, S23 degrees; salmon, SO
degrees; minow, So degrees; gudgeon, So
degrees; dace, Sc degrees; common tench, 50
degrees; golden tench, IS degrees; carp, 81
degrees. Brandy has been found to have q
good effect in restoring exhausted fab to ami
nation.
It does not appear that the moderate use
of Persian opium in Persia is deleterious.
Opium eaters there are it is true, but they
are few. Opium smoking is almost unknown;
and opium when smoked is, as a rule,
smoked by native doctors prescription.
The opium pill box, tiny box of silver, is
as common in Persia as the snuff box was
once with Us. Most men of forty among the
upper and middle classes use it. They take
from grain to grain and half, divided
into two pills, one In the afternoon and one
at night. Travellers, too, almost invariably
take it.
Rheen, of the Smithsonian Institute, hes
contradicted much of the popular belief con-
corning snakes. The venomous hoop snake
which takes its tail in its mouth aud rolls
along like hoop and the blow snake,
the breath of which is deadly, exist only in
| the imagination. The idea that serpents
| sting with the tongue is erroneous. An i'm
preston prevails that the number of poison
| GUS snakes is great, but in North America
| there are but three species-the rattlesnake,
| the copperhead or moccasin, and the coral.
| Snakes do not jump; they reach suddenly
| forward, perhaps half the length of their
| bodies.
The cure OF one actresss mitten man is
reported. He had for many years bsen an
1 inmate of an insane asylum. He became q
| furious lover of Ristori as Mary Stuart and
| Immediately went daft. or late years the
| one mania OF love for the mimic Queen va
| all that allied him. Seeing that Rstori, on
her recent farewell tour, had become q mid
| dle-sged woman, with none OF her personal
beauty left, the physician decided to take mis-
patient to see her. The result was ast0nish.
| ingly successful. There was enough of the
| former Ristori to convince the man that she
| was the same Individual; but he was so thor
| oughly disencAanted tina. recovery was al.
| most instantaneous.
| In q recent address before the American
| Medical Association, DR.. Didama while Civ
/ ing due credit to investigators, believed that
bacteriology had furnished little help to the
| art of healing. The treatment for consump
ton has not been even modified by the dis
| coVery Of the bacillus. and the former still
carries off one-sixth of the human race. No
new remedy had been suggested by the find
| ing OF the cholera microbe. The acid treat
| ment OF cholera was employed with some
| success years before 1t was known that the
cause of the disease was shapsd like a
| comma. Ague yielded to Jesuits' bark ages
/ before the bacillus malariae was dreamed of,
and the knowledge that germs originate the
/ complaint has not added one jot to our abil-
| ity to manage it.
A LONDON doctor has published some
1 curious comparative statistics on the longev-
/ ity OF public and professional men. He
| found that the average age at death OF the
/ twenty-five most prominent American states
/ men during the hundred years was sixty
nine. The average of an equal member OF
English statesmen was seventy years-prac.
] ticslly the came. he thought the latter did