The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1885-11-11
POPULAR SCIENCE.

A paper Is manufactured from sea
weed in Japan that has the transparency
of glass-not exactly clear flint glass,
but a good sort of sta ned glass-and
can be used satisfactorily in windows.
Arsenic having heen found to act as a
preventive of malarial fever, Mr.. W.
Mattieu Williams has suggested that the
generally condemned arsenical wall pa
pcrs may be useful as a protection against
the dangers of regions subject to ma
laria.
A singular case in charge of DR.. Strum-
pell, of Leipsig, a few days ago, was that
of a young man in whom brain disease
had destroyed all sensibility of touch,
and also the functions of one eye and
one ear. The youth was wide awake,
conscious and intelligent when the re-
naming eye and ear were open, but at
nice became unconscious when they were
carefully closed.
DR.. Fo:hergill says that a patient dy-
ing of exhaustion is generally dying of
starvation. "We give him beef tea,
calf's foot jelly, alcohol, settler and milk;
that is, a small quantity of sugar, OF
milk and some fat. But the jelly is the
poorest sort of food, and the beef tea q
mere stimulant. The popular belief that
beef tea contains the very strength OF
the meat is q terrible error, it has no food
value"
In a new French apparatus the heat of
the sun falling upon metallic plates
tightly covering a thin layer Of volatile
LIQUID, like ammonia, is combined with
the natural GOODNESS of water to generate
power for pumping. With plates hav'
ing a surface of forty square yards such
an apparatus would hourly raise 1872 gal
Ions of water sixty-ive feet IN warm eli
mates, and at Auteuil raises over 800
gallons per hour.
In some recent scientific experiments
on the effects of cold, two frogs were
frozen solid in q temperature of about
twenty degrees Fahrenheit, and kept it
in that condition for half an hour. On
thawlng slowly they recovered perfectly,
but it was found that longer periods OF
exposure invariably killed the animals.
The experiment was tiled OF freezing
dramatically sealed meat, so as to kill its
bacterial organisms, aud thus render it
incapable of putrefyiDg. 1t was found,
however, that so low a temperature az
eighty degrees below zero would not de-
,troy the vitality Of nitro-organisms. 1t
was thus made clear that the attempts to
preserve meat for Il long tins by a mo
mentary freezing of it must be aban-
toned.
Morgan, of Manchester, England, has
remarked upon the healthy condition OF
the Highland croftcrs, who live in
'bothies ," the atmosphere Of which is
.mpregnated with peat smoke, and are
vet not troubled by disease, being par
iicularly free from consumption and
other lung infections. Their rooms are
warmed by a peat fire kept constantly
burning in the middle of the floor; and,
their being no means of escape for the
smoke except a hole in the corner of the
coof, the atmosphere is often pungent
enough to make the eyes and nostrlls
smart. Yet the inhabitants are we'll and
vigorous, and are liable to lung diseases
only when they 60 to live in houses with
chimneys. The explanation of the phe.
nomenon is not hard to find. Peat
smoke is heavily charged with antisep-
tics-with tar, creosote, tannin and varl'
Gus volatile oils and resins-and the salu-
tary influence of these more than makes
up for the adultcration of the air.