Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1885-07-20

scIENrIFIc AND INpusTRIAL


DR.. G. z. Saunders, of the West Herts
medical association in England, contends
that cholera is transmitted from one To-
cality to another by human agencies
rather than climatic causes. Evidence
81 this ID the fact that no outbreak has
been known to occur in less time than il
would take man TO travel the distance
from the nearest place where the disease
already existed.
Among the new applications of cotton
Is It's use in part, in the construction Of
houses, the material employed for this
purpose being the refuse, which. when
ground up with about an equal amount
OF straw and asbestos, is converted into
paste. and this is formed into large slabs
Or bricks, which require, it is said, the
hardness of stone, and furnish q really
valuable building stock.
Professor TromhoIt, in Norway, has met
with partial success in photo.
graphing the aurora borealis, a feat
which his many failures had led him to
pronounce impossible. After exposing
. plate for eight and half minutes he
secured negative of an aurora. but the
fnpreasion is so very faint that it cannot
be reproduced as positive.
a novel use for paper has been found
IN the manufacture Of gas pipes. In adj
Qition 70 being absolutely tight and
shooth, and much cheaper than iron,
these pipes are of great strength. for
when the sides are scarcely three-fifths
of an inch thick, they will stand pres
sure Of more than fifteen atmospheres.
If buried under the ground they will not
be broken by settlement, nor when vio-
emily shaken or Jared. The material
being bad conductor of heat, the pipes
do not readily freeze.
Sea waves, according to observations
Of the United States naval photographic
officer. show height OF from forty -four
70 forty-eight feet, but those Of a height
greater than thirty feet are not com
monty encountered The longest re-
corded wave measured half-mile from
crest to crest, with a period of twenty
three seconds. Waves having length
Of 800 or 600 feet, and periods of ten to
eleven seconds, are the ordinary storm
waves Of the North Atlantic.
DR.. Wormlcy, in recent work, con-
cludes, as the result Of most searching
study of the bloods of forty different
mammals, that "a microscope may ena-
Bile US to determine with great certainty
that blood is not of certain animal,
and is consistent with the blood of man;
but IN no instance does it in itself enable
as to say that the blood is really human
OF indicate from what particular species
of animal it was derived" The state
ment has high medico legal Importance.
The Boston journal says: s'The pure
white light of the sun is delusion of
our senses, according to late scientific
discovery. The true color of the sun is
blue. aud becomes white only as we see
IL through our atmosphere, which acts
like sort of sieve holding back the ex-
cess of blue in the original sunlight.
Hereafter the scientific poRt will sing of
the blue sunshine sitting through the
leaves from the white sky, and blue
were her eyes, like the sunbeamssfair.
Accuracy and poetry are not incompati-
BILE.
While excavating the bed for new
and larger gasometer a Dumfries (Scot-
land) gas works, the contractor came
upon bed of peat, in which were inn
bedded the trunk of Scotch fir, six
feet Il height, with the bark upon it;
pieces Of elm, oak and hazel, with nuts
and cones, broken antlers, and various
coleopterous remaiL In quantity of
the moss placed under glass the Gran
berry and other plants ave begun to
germinate after sleep o. centuries. The
spot, which is now in the heart of the
town, u supposed to have formed part
Of the bed of lock in prehistoric times,
and three centuries ago mill dam was
constructed at the place which was then
morass. The bed of conzlomerate
on which the peat and other top layers
rest has been found to contain large
fragments of red granite, rock which
Is not known to exist in the immediate
vicinity.