The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-08-22
Compiled for THR ARKANsAw TRAvRLKR.
 SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.


 A prize has been offered by the Anti. Tobacco Society of Franc for the best essay on the liability or non-liability os smokers ;o contract cholera.
 According to Prof. I. c. Galle, five comets were known to make their periheliou passage in 1880, eight in 1887, three in 188a, two in 1883, and three in 1884.
 Bones have been proven to quickly dis solve in sea-water. They are consequently seldom obtained during ocean dredgings al. though teeth, which resist the action of the water indefinitely, are often brought up.
 Among the animals eates by diff .rent nations which are not used as food in civil ized countries, MT. P. L. Simmonds mentions monkeys, lemurs, bats, skunks, foxes, lions, porcupines, crocodiles salamanders, snakes, caterpillars and ants.
 Continued investigation confirms the belief that the English sparrow destroys vege- tation instead of protecting it from insects, One observer has reported to Miss E. A. l OEmerod. the English entomologist, that the crops offfty sparrows, killed in one summer, contained but two insects.
 The electric light has been applied to the firing of guns at night. Trouve has de scribed to the Paris Academy of Sciences button illuminated by a minute battery, by which the gunner is enabled to take aim; while another little apparatus-an incandes. cent lamp with a suitable reiector-throws beam of light upon the object to be fired at. A Chinese viceroy has propounded a new earthquake theory In memorial to the throne, this high official attributes an earth | quake of last January to the mildness of the winter, which caused an excess of "yans,"or male element of Nature although the shock was in measure due to local officials whe neglected their duties, and thus failed to gain the barmonizlng influence of Heaveni
 Since 1877, Delaunay, of Paris, has made several predictions of earthquake sea. sons, and his prophesies have unfortunately all come true. He now predicts very severe volcanic disturbances for 1886 to occur at time when the attractive influence of the other members of the solar system is most strongly felt upon our planet, or, rather, when that in fiuence is most unevenly distributed during near approach of the great attractive bodies.
 The extent to which anima als appreciate color is an interesting but unsolved problem. It is being investigated by l. Graber, who has experiment nted upon five mammals, seven birds, two reptiles, three amphbians, two Echa two spiders and two worms. He has found that the sense of color, as we'll as the power of Perceiving light, is much more widely dis trbuted among animals than has been sup posed, although the variations in the sense of color and brightness in animals are great
 Cereal Growth -F From careful re. searches n Russia, Kowalewski. has found that cereals grow faster in the north than in the south. For instance, oats and spring wheat take I23 days and barley no days to ripen about the southern province of Kher. son. and only o8, 88. and o8 days at Arkhan- gelsk in the north The informed ate regions show intermediate differences. The cause is the greater length of the daily exposure to sunlight in the high latitudes, which more than compe ensates for the difference in tenn perature in favor of the southern regious. In each latitude the growth of cereals is more rapid in the eastern parts of Russia than in the western, the land near the coast having less sunshine than that in the continents in- terior.
 A Mineral Lung.-By a remarkable process, now being exhibited in London, the 8rin brothers, French chemists, claim to be able to cheaply obtain oxygen from the at mosphere in unlimited quantities. The air is first freed from its moisture and carbonic acid by quicklme, reducing it to a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. These gases are then passed through an artificial lung of an- hydrous oxide of barium, which at a temper ature of 500 degrees absorbs the oxygen, while the nitrogen is drawn of to a gaso- meter for conversion into ammonia, etc. This use oi baryta is not new, but the salt is for the first time m ade indestructible and capable of performing its work for an indeh. mite period. It is claimed that this cheapened method of obtaining oxygen and the second ary nit-ogenous products, mus, effect an ab- solute revolution in chemistry.
 Neptune's Teachings Of deep sea life, and the gradual changes by which seems to have reached its present stage. Fil- | hol, French naturalist remarks During the greater part of geological time the earths surface cid not exhibit those deep depres. sions and great projections that it does in our day. The continents did not possess ther present great reliefs, or the oceans their abysses. Gradually, in measure as the earth under the influence of the cooling that it un- derwent, cracked, the bottom of the oceans sank more and more. he equality of tenn perature that was established between the deep marine zones of the warm and temper. ate regions and the superficial marine zones of the cold regions permitted species living at these latter points to extend over greater and greater spaces; although they met with cos. ditions of life different from those of the sur roundings in which they were formerly placed