The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1885-02-07
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
4 Weekly Summary ~ Current Events u
all Departments Of Science.

all Departments Of Science.
An Australian naturalist has discovered
| the nervous system of the sponges.
German research has shown that the mel
lowness of old wine is due to an increase in
it's proportion Of glycerine.
| After ten years Of experiment, the super
intendent of the porcelain factory at Sevres.
Mons Lauth thinks he has produced porce
lain identical with that of China, and far
superior to the famous old Sevres.
De Candolle, the French botanist, sup
poses that agriculture had its origin in
three widely separated regions, namely,
China. Southwestern Asia and Egypt, and
the highlands of Mexico and Peru.
The value of sulphnte of iron as plant
food has been tested by an English chemist,
Mr.. A. B. Griffiths. The use of fifty pounds
per acre increased the yield of beans from
% bushels to A, of turnips from Ii tons to
1911, but produced little effect on cereals.
! An astronomical observation of an earth
quake was lately made by the director of
the observatory at Nice, France. He was
watching one of Saturn's moons at the
moment of the shock, and the motion i'm
parted to his telescope caused the celestial
object to appear to move some fifteen or
twenty seconds to the right.
The plan of electrically transmitting
power has been IN practical operation for
more than eight months at Bienne, Swift
gerland. A turbine and dynamo convert
the power of mountain torrent into cleo
tricity, which passes over wires some 500
feet to receiving dynamo furnishing two
shops with their required six to eighteen
horse power.
DR.. NJ. E. Wadsworth finds that the
| assumption that the earth has ga hetero-
| geneous, viscid, elastic, liquid interior,
irregularly interlocked with and gradually
passing into lighter heterogeneous crust"
| accords batter witb geological facts than
any other of the various hypothesis thus
far advanced. Contractions and upheavals
of fhe crust, resembling in their effects
what is sometimes seen in ice, would salts
factorily explain volcanic aud earthquake
phenomena.
Considering its extent, America ia better
supplied by the clouds than Europe and
Africa. In the tropics of the Old World
the annual rainfall is about II inches, while
in tropical South America it is los inches
In the eastern United States it is 40 to so
inches; but west of the one hundredth me-
ridian to the Sierra Nevada it is mostly IL
to is inches. The annual average Of Great
Britain is IS inches; that of France 20 to q
inches; but about the Alps it is m ostly :,5 to
90 inches. Farther from the coast, in Cen
trail Germany and Russia, it is only Is to
20 inches. The moistest climate know. is
in India, at Cherrapongee, where over a
small area the yearly fall of the rain is
more than G1O inches, or about 81 feet.
Many rather mysterious boiler explosions
having been attributed to the sudden and
explosively violent flashing into steam of
superheated water, the French Academy of
Sciences appointed committee, a wear
or more ago, to investigate the subject.
That committee has since made many
careful experiments, usina pure and i'm
pure water, water which had been long
stagnant, and water from which the air
had been driven by long boiling and gen
Grating steam by rapid and by slow firing.
As result the conclusion has been
reached that if any boiler explosion has
occurred through superheating it must
have been through the concurrence of ex-
ceptlonal circumstances, which are neither
defined, known nor suspected. The exper-
~'ents have shown conclusively that, how.
ever u.accountable explosions sometimes
appear, the real cause must be looked for
in the simple loading of the boilers with
steam pressures beyond their strength.
matter Of surprise and wonder to those
who witness it for the first time is the |
rousing TO life of whole colonies of infu-
soria by the addition of drop of water
containing accomplishing vegetable or ami |
NAL matter, and some forms may. in dried |
state, remain for months or even wears an |
parently dead, to be revived when water is |
again supplied to them. Mr.. Jabez Hogg |
has been experimenting during the past
three years with one form of infusorial
life-the rotifers or wheel animalcules-
and has even kept dried specimens for
time at temperature of 200 degrees
Fahrenheit. and afterward exposed them to
intense cold, neither process killing them
nor greatly diminishing Their vital powers.
MIR. Hogg supposes that as the animal dries
1t shuts itself up like telescope, its skin
taking an egg-like shape, and that a
secreting organ coats the body with a
gelatinous envelope which protects it from
further change. ".M
The tip of the tongue" remarks Grant
allen, "is concerned mainly with pungent
and acid tastes: the middle portion is SEN
sltlve chiefly to sweets and bitters; while
the back or lover portion confines itself to
the flavors of roast meat, butter, oils. and
other rich or fatty substances. There are
very good reasons for this subdivision of
faculties in the tongue, the object being, as
it were, to make each piece of food under
60 three separate EXAMINATIONS, which
must be successfully passed before it is ad-
United into full participation in the human
The first examination gets rid
at once OF substances which would be ac-
lively and Immediately destructive to the
very tls$faes Of the mouth and body: the sec
bud discriminates between poisonous and
harmless food-s,uffs; and the
third merely decides the minor question
whether the particular food is likely to
prove then and there wholesome or indi-