The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-04-04
Compiled for THE ARKANsAw TRAyxLKa.
 SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY

T SClENTkFIC MISCELLANY
 A January fog in London, lasting p,.
 of one day, cost more than $asooo for f.
 tra gas used in consequence.
 Under electric illumination, Dr. Tb.a
 dore Stein finds himself able to pho,og,,,. the throat and larynx in health or disease
 The forests of the United States con- prise 4Ia species of trees, belonging to ,s
 genera. Of these, 4s genera and Go speciu5 are peculiar to Florida.
 An interesting case of phosphoresc.u| snow has been observed by a Philadelpb. geologlst, a mouAtain covered with this snov shining in dark night as if illuminated b, the moon.
 A botanical phenomenon was wituess.lI last season on the shore of Todos Sap,o. Bay, lower California, where an apple. .u.. olossomed and bore large perfect fruit on iu trunk, an inch from the ground.
 An accident in a Melbourne foupdr has led to the discovery that plungine fro, castings into mixture of treacle and wa,s seitens the metal to such degree that il csa be punched, bored and tapped as readily y wrought iron.
 Experiments have been mad. in Franc with electricity as an agent to prevent the is crustation of boilers. The passage of al current through a boiler not only caused the impurities of the water to settle as al loose powder bu: detached the old incrus,s tion.
 It appears from observations made n France that the development of veeetabl. life is retarded by an average of nearly four days for each additional 100 yards of aItt tude. The arrival of the chimney swallow is delayed about two days for each increase ofI 100 yards in height.
 Naturally Oiled Harbors. anch. orages Of Narrakal and Alleppy, in India, are | stated 10 be perfectly smooth and quiet eve, when the sea outside is tumbling in befor. strong southwesterly gales. To explain this, Dr. w. King mentions that analysis proves the existence of oil in the muddy bottoms of these anchorages, and he supposes that there are deposits of petroleum, either beneath the sea bottom or along the coast, from which oil continually oozes up, and cams the otherwise troubled waters.
 A Mountain Wind.-A remarkable phenomenon of the North of England is ,her. known as the helm wind. A late description states that it blows out of clouds which col, lect on the Pennine range of mountains and makes rushing noise like the roar of tte heavy sea breaking upon a rocky shore. Its lifting force is so great that it sometimes over. turns vehicles, and takes animals off theu feet. Itprevails chiefly in the Carlisle dis. trict, and is seldom felt at greater distance than seven miles from it's apparent place of origin.
 A New Solution of an Old Puzzle. German physicist attributes the well. knows phenomenon of the apparent enlargement of the sun and moon, when rising or setting to two physiological causes. One is the greater sensitiveness of the eye to angular magni. tudes when seen horizontally and the other is an effect of the dilation of .he pupil under the feebler light reaching us from the heav. enly bodies when near the horizon, such di. lation tending to magnify the images re- ceived. He finds experimental proof of these theories, and shows the absurdity of the common explanation that intervening ob- size of the sun and moon.
 The Solar Corona.-The most impres. sive feature of total eclipse of the sun is the corona, the aureole of light, at other times invisible, which surrounds the hidden disc and sends out rays far into space. Dr. w. Huggins, who has succeeded in photo- graphing the corona without the aid of an eclipse, remarks that it is variously ex- plained as coming from a gaseous solar at. mosphere, from matter elected by the sun, from ring of meteoric matter, from comets tails, and from meteor streams travelling at distance from the sun but illuminated by il. He concludes, however, that the phenomenon is complex one, in the production of which each of the suggested causes may play some part. A very thin gaseous atmosphere prop- ably surrounds the solar glebe, but the coronal light must be reflected from solid p@Au~AeS An Nat ahhOSpucIe. ne existence of one particle in a cubic mile would ac- count for the corona.
 Life of Ancient America.-The gigan- tic animals which existed in the western part ofihe United States during the tertiary age, and which constitute an order known to science as the Diaoesyafa, form the subjec, sf an elaborate treatise by Professor o. C. Marsh, of Yale college. A basin in Wyom- ing Territory, drained by Green river, is the only locality in the world where remains of these creatures have been found. This ba- sin, new from 6ooo to a,ooo feet above sea. level, is the site of an ancient lake, on whose borders the great beasts, nearly equaling elephants in size. roamed in great numbers, and in which many of them were entombed. In the same region ancestral forms of the tapir, the horse and the pig fourished at the same geological period; and the lake swarmed with crocodiles, tortoises, snakes and Ashes, while it's shores were frinsed with palms and other plants which are nov char ~f al 4