The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-11-07
Compiled foE TEE ARKAxsAw TRAvxExR.
 SCIEN rIFIC MISCELLANY

The change of dough to bread ;s 4. ciared by French investigator, Aime Gi,... to be transformation due to alcoholic t.. mentation.
 A school of aerostatics is to be estaA lished in France, especial attention ,o h. given to teaching the use of the balloon i. military operations.
 At an annual examination in bo,a,, the London Society of Apoihecaries ov.. regularly gold and silver medal to ,h. young women taking first and second rank
 Since 1859 the number Of ligh,p;,, strokes in Saxony has been found to incre.,s regularly, the annual number rising in years from 6 to I3o This alarming ipcre.,. is thought to be largely due to the destruct;on of the forests.
 From the Giffard bequest the French Government realizes about $r,ccoooo to he used for the good of science. 1t is prohabs that the various projects suggested for e,. pending the money will be submitted 10 tbs Academy of Sciences before action is take,
 From tests made by Dr. Fischer tb. German chemist t appears that in ordiparv domestic stoves not more than twenty Ne, cent. of the fuel consumed is utilized in warm. ing the rooms, whereas with gas-hurniro stoves eighty per cent. or more of the DOS, sible effect is obtained
 An example of rapid stalactite -forma. ton appears al Quebec. St John's Gate in the city wall was rebuilt in 1867 of greyisb limestone, and the constant dripping of vs,e, from the crevices has already formed rrpu. ! lar stalactite deposits a foot and a half in length and three-fourths of an inch in diameter.
 l Spiders in Forestry. Spiders have been | found by Dr. C. Keller, of Zurich, to be yo- racous destroyers of plant preyipg insects and he contends that they play more effrc- tive part in the preservation of forests than all the insect eating birds together. The value of the service rendered by spiders has been shown by observations on conifetops trees, few broad leaved trees, ard apple trees.
 An Imporapt Work-A new map of the solar spectrum has been completed by AhOiAOh diiCI tOuI years or lnCeSSant lat or A the observatory of Nice. The chart com. prlses about one third of the prismatic spec. trum, is about forty feet long and includes POO lines, or double the number in the best previous work. Change, in these lines of the spectrum tell rtainly of changes in the sun, and il has been the authors aim to make future changes apparent by providing an ac- curat record of the present state of the solar spectrum.
 Essential Food of Plants.-While it is positively known that plants require carbon, sydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen as constitu- ents of their food there are several other elements found in plants whose essential character is not certainly established Some recent experiments, according to Mir. l. Jameson, an English chemist, furnish proof that sulphur is not an essential, that even lime and magnesia are of doubtful ne- cessity, but that phoshhorous and potassium are indispensable. Iron and chlorine occur in plants, but have little claim 10 be regarded as essentials
 A New African Sea Project.-The Lake Moeris of Herodotus, usually regarded as myth, was wonderful artificial inland sea about sixty mites south of the pyramids of Gzeh. IL was 45o miles in circumference and was created by leading the waters of the Nile into vat depression. Believing the marvellous story of the Greek chronicler. an American explorer, Mir. Cope Whitehouse, has sought the ancient lake, and has discov- cred its supposed site in an immense hollow Tn the desert which descends more than 200 feet below sea-level It is now proposed to hlt-or rehll-this hollow by means of an easily made passage from the river, and thus give fertility 10 large area and relieve the Lower Nile country from it's disastrous inun- dations.
 Electricity Direct from Heat.-By means of novel battery in which the we'll known phenomenon ofthe passage of hydro- gen gas through heated platinum generates powerful current of electricity, Mir I. A. Ken dali, of North Ormsby, England, seems to have taken step toward the production of electric power fl om the combustion of coal or other fuel without the expensive av waste ful intervention of a steam ergine The working of the new ge nerator re qu,res only
 
 ventor estimates that a ton of coke N>ed in heating the ittery, including the hydrogen producer, will give a. least three times the electrical energy that would be yielded by the same fuel in running a steam engine and dynamo.
 A Botanical Anomaly So universal is the cylindrical form of the stems of grasses that reports concerning square-stemmed bamboo of China and Japan have been gem erAliy discredited. Very recently, however, such plant has been proven to exist and specimens of the stems have been secured by a few English botanists, some of them being now in the Kew Museum. Unlike other ban boos of is locality, the square bamboo, i, appears, sprouts in the au,umn, and aitains its full height oi ten to fourteen feet the fol-