Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1885-10-07
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
lCompilsd for the spEorAron. ]

| 1HE STRENGTH OF GALES.-Bef0r6
committee of the English Parliament, Mr..
b. Baker lately expressed the belief that
ordinary anemometers greatly exaggerate
the force OF wind storms, and that no such
pressure as IS pounds per square foot can
be exerted by the wind over any consider
able surface. Proof that so great a pres
sure has not been approached in the Thames
Valley for many years is found in the fact
that the London gas holders have never been
damaged by storms although those struc-
lures cannot resist q pressure much exceed
ing IL pounds per square foot. In Mr..
Bakers own experience gale giving 164
pounds pressure to the square foot COM
pletely stops all traffic on the Firth of Forth.
A side pressure of 40 pounds per square
foot would certainly upset an ordinary rail-
way train, yet trains continue to run when
thermometers register considerably great.
er wind pressure; while street-cars are very
rarely overturned by wind, although they
cannot remain upright under pressure of
only 20 pounds to the square foot.
COPPER PLATING CoRPsEs.-A French
chemist proposes coating the bodies of the
dead with skin of copper, which is readily
effected by the we'll known process of cleo
tro plating. A second plating of gold or
silver could be added if desired. The treat
ment permanently preserves the cOrpses
from chemical change, and has already been
applied to several human subjects and to
many animals.
A new alloy called platinoid, expected to
prove very useful in the arts, is said to be
practically untarnishable and hardly dis
tinguishable from silver. Its composition
is essentially that of German silVer-which
is an alloy of 100 parts of copper, go of tin,
and 40 of nickel-with the addition of one
or two per cent of tungsten.
DR.. B. W. Richardson finds that the cat
resists suffocation three times as long as the
dog, on the average, and in one instance
nine times as long.
SOME EFFECTS OF FOREST REMOVAL
Among the results of the destruction of the
forests and the drainage of the land DR.. R.
Fl. Reed finds the following: More wind,
greater dampness, increased rainfall, more
dust, more frequent showers, more sudden
changes of temperature and moisture,
quicker transmission of water to the great
basins, and diminution of the common sup
ply of springs and wells. A decrease Of
malarial diseases follows these changes,
with an increase of typhoid fever, catarrh,
deafness and chronic lung troubles. The
spread of zymotic and contagious diseases
is favored by the increase of wind and dust.
| AN ELECTRIC PLANT.-If German ac-
count is to be believed the plant world has
it's living electrical generators as well as the
animal kingdom. 1t is stated that ON break
ing stem of the Phytolacca electrica the
hand receives shock like that given by an
induction coil, and that the magnetic needle
is affected to a distance Of twenty feet. This
energy of the plant is greatest at 2 P. NJ,
and almost disappears at nightfall.
| On certain beaches are found sands which
on being set in motion produce a peculiar
musical sound. The characteristics of the
grains are being studied by Prof Bolton, of
Hartford, who has found the f'singing
sands' in many localities in this country,
and has been supplied by the Smithsonian
Institution with variety of specimens from
the Sandwich Islands. Germany, and other
places.
Evidence of the prevalence of cannibal-
ism among the prehistoric inhabitants of
Portugal has been discovered on the Peniche
peninsula, where also has been found skull
on which some early surgeon appears to
have used his stone implements in the de-
licate operation of trepanning.
DR.. Hook, German naturalist, finds
that the eastern hemisphere affords 289
plants and So animals useful to man, while
the western world contributes only So plants
and 13 animals.
| BRINGING THE DEAD TO LIFE.-Some
facts mentioned by DR.. Richardson, the
English psychologist, suggest the possbil-
ty Of restoring persons to life after actual
death. By combining artificial circulation
with artificial respiration, dog was restor-
ed to life sixty-tive minutes after having
been killed by an overdose of chloroform,
the heart having become perfectly still and
| cold; and frogs poisoned by nitrate of anvil
were restored after nine days of apparent
death, signs of putrefactive change having
appeared in one case. A quite startling ef-
feet is produced by peroxide of hydrogen in
terminating the blood and restoring heat to
really dead body. These observations, in
the opinion of Mr. W. Mattien Williams,
justify the conclusion that drowned or suf-
focated man is not hopelessly dead so long
as the bodily organs remains uninjured by
violence or disease, and the blood remains
sufficiently liquid to be set in motion arti-
ficially and supplied with little oxygen to
start the chemical movements of life.
The NEW STAR.-The remarkable eighth
magnitude star in the great nebula of An
dromeda, whose sudden appearance has just
been announced by DR.. Hartwig, of Stras-
burg, seems to have one exact counterpart
in astronomical history. On May 81, 1859,
Anwera discovered bright star-certainly
invisible three days before-in the nebula
80 Messier. In this case the new star grew
rapidly fainter and had vanished by June
10, no trace of it having since been SEEM
These mysterious and startling phenomena
have an especial interest from their possible
bearing on Laplace's theory that suns and
planets have been slowly formed by the con-
densation of nebular matter.
The Patagonians, including both sexes,
have an average stature of five feet ten
inches, according to Mr.. II. Hale, who con-
siders that the adoption ofsquestrian habits
has shortened the legs of the people two
inches in two centuries, their former height
averaging six feet.
bashful beau, ''I wish you'd tie this ribbon
at my throat; can't see how to do it with
out glass" s'Of course; I'll be too glad
to-" he said, and at once grappled the
strings. After an unsuccessful effort of
five minutes during which he got as red as a
brick house and perspired like pitcher of
ice water on July window sill, he stammer
ed: "I-J-don't think can tie respectable
knot, Miss Mary" s'Suppose, Philander,"
sho whiSpered. with a nrettv little h1uSh