The Arizona sentinel., 1885-08-15
FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

THE human lungs exh le, in twenty
 four ho ITS, about two pounds of carbonic acid. This is the product of the burn ing of nine ounces of carbon. As giving some idea of the forces within the body,
 it is interesting to know that the com.
 bustion of nine ounces of carbon hber. ates over COCO, 900 foot pounds of en. ergy. This is equivalent to more than one-eighth of horsepower acting con- tinuously for the twenty-four hours or 1t equals 182 horse powers working for one minute.
 AMONG the cannon at the Rock Island arsenal is one which was captured at Saratoga, Oct. F, 1777; one captured at
 Yorktown, Oct. 19, 17S1; one captured at Niagara, July %. 1914 pair of mor- tars, captured at Vera Cruz, March 29, 1S47; one captured in the late civil WAT bearing the inscription, |" Presented to South Carolina, by one of its citizens travelling abroad, in commemoration of what was done on the 20th of December, 1800." There are also several cannon which were cast in France and Spain, dating back nearly to the beginning of the last century.
 WHAT MAKES CORN PoP?-Did you ever have it explained to you why it is that corn pops when you place 1t over burning coal or on hot stove2 Indian corn, so the chemists tell us, contains all the way from six to eleven parts in 100, by weight, of fat. By proper means this fat can be separated from the grain, and it is then thick, pale oil. When oils are heated sufficiently in closed ves- sels, so that the air cannot get to them, they are turned into gas, which occupies many times the bulk the oil did. When popcorn is gradually heated, and made so hot that the oil inside of the kernels turns to gas, this gas cannot escape through the hull of the kernels, but when the interior pressure gets strong enough it bursts the grain, and the ex- plosion is 50 violent that it shatters it in the most curious manner. Tie starch in the grain becomes cooked, and takes up great deal moro space than it did before.
 JUPrER.-Jupiter's diameter is about eleven times that of our earth, and his mean density is about 8 quarter that of the earth, or abouta third more than water. Now, a bulky body may be composed of heavy materials, and still, as 8 whole, be light, like an iron ship or lump of pumice-stone, that will float in water. The pumice lump is light on account of its vesicular formation, so that the mass consists of heavy felspathic material and the air it contains. Extract the air, and the pumice loses its floating power, though still far from heavy in propor- tion to its bulk. Most of the earth's crust is formed of solids much heavier than water. Granites are more than two and halt times heavier than water, slaty rocks about the same, and so are ordinary limestones, the variations of all being from about 2.5 10 29. The iron- stone group contains denser minerals red hematite has a specific gravity of 1. 5; magnetic ironstone, 4.5 to 5.2, etc., aud many other ores are heavy. At some remote period, when only part of the now solid earth had been condensed from gaseous and vapory matter, our planet might have had a mean density like that of Jupiter, as its rocky nlateri. als contain between 40 and 50 per cent. of oxygen and while condensations and chemical combinations were going on rapidly our globe must have been the scene of
 Thundcrs, Nshtnings and prodigious storma And it is probable that certain stars which have suddenly blazed forth with passing splendor have exhibited to Us the spectacle of conhagrations extending over millions and billions of square. miles. Color. changes in Jupiter-such as those noticed by MT. Browning and the writer in 69-7O-msy have beer caused by soda flames, though not fierce enough or extensive enough to add ma. terially to his ordinary luminosity, which is estimated as always exceeding, though not in 2 very high degree, what it woul! be by mere reflection of light received from the sun.-BeLgravid.