New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1885-02-04
Scientific Miscellany.

AuAASs oIdlCS Cudt LHe COluMO00C metals
OF commerce have greatly improved in
quality in the last few years as result
OF improvement in the work OF puriti-
cation. Much copper now averages 80
per cent. pure, while large proportion
OF the silver from the mining regions
contains SO and nine-tenths per cent.
OF tho pure metal. Concerning the
waste in working precious metals, DR..
Booth remarks that, while loss of ten
per cent. is tolerated in working iron
in the fire, the government holds the
mint responsible for greater waste in
working gold than one-tenth of one per
cent, and the actual loss is usually far
less than this.
In the open air, mineral coal is liable
to crumbling and often to spontaneous
combustion. An Australian mining
engineer, Wenzel Poech, has discover
ed simple and inexpensive means of
preventing loss from such sources, the
plan consisting chiefly in treating the
coal-pile with steam for the exclusion
OF the air and securing permanent re-
tention OF moisture. The theory is that
the absorption of oxygen and other
gases, for which the way is opened by
the evaporation of the microscopic
moisture, causes the deterioration of
the coal, and this cannot happen il the
coal is kept full of water.
The doctrine of the permanency of
the ocean basins, about which geolo-
gists disagree, is strongly supported by
Rev. Q. Fisher, who refers to q sugges-
ton which he made in 1882 to account
for the origin of the vast depressions
which the oceans fill. Accepting Prof.
G. H. Darwin's theory that the moon
broke away from the earth more than
fifty million years ago, he thinks the
ocean basins may be the scar that was
formed, and that the basement rocks of
continents are fragments of the crust
which hadalready solicited, and which
were left behind
1t has been demonstrated by DR.. Hans
Molisch that the roots of plants may be
detected from their normal direction
by exposure on one side to certain gas
es. 1t such gases are in moderate
quantities the roots bend away from
their source; if in larger quantities, to-
ward such source. The side of the
root exposed to the action of the gas
grows more strongly than the other.
A German experimenter, Prof. E.
Wollny, has found that soil covered
with living heritage or dead vegetable
matter is colder in summer and warm.
or in winter than bare soil under other
wise similar conditions. The difference
OF temperature is greatest in summer
and least in spring and autumn. Bare
soil heats more quickly in the spring
and co0ls more quickly in autumn than
that covered with living or dead vege-
table matter.
In . communication to the French
Academy of Science, Mons. A. H. de
Villeneuve has urged the importance of
using distilled water for drinking pur-
poses, and has suggested that the cost
may be greatly reduced by using that
obtainablo from steam engines. He
asserts that it is not unpalatable and
contains sufficient air, while the abb
sence of lime salts is an advantage.
A Swedish naturalist, DR.. Wills, has
investigated the strength of various
kinds of sea weed to resist strains, such
as are caused by the swell of the sea.
He finds that seaweeds are very strong
and elastic, the parts which ordinarily
lie lowest in the water being capable Of
bearing the greatest strain.
The little living worms which have
been most unexpectedly discovered in
ice are described by Prof. Leidy as be-
ing white or colorless, and from one
fourth to one-sixth of an inch long by
one-seventy-ffth Of an inch in thick
ness, tho species being unknown.
The deep sea crustaces, according to
Prof. Moseley, either have very large
eyes or are eyeless, and there must be
a source of light in the deep sea. That
source, he claims, is phosphorescence,
but its light must be very dim.