Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1885-05-06
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
Compiled for the SPECTATOR ]

CCompiled for the SPECTATOR.
AMERICAN TIMBERs.-A complete COL
lection of the native woods of the United
States is being prepared for the New York
Museum of Natural History. 1t will COM
prise 36 varieties of oak, "a of pine, o of
fir, 5 of spruce, of hemlock, IL of ash, 8
of hickory. IS of willow, 8 Of cherry, 9 Of
poplar, of maple, 2 of persimmon, and 3
of cedar. Each specimen will display both
longitudinal and transverse grainings of the
wood, as well as the log in it's natural
condition, with the bark attached.
WHAT BECOMES OF ARCTIC ANIMALs?-
It has been a source of much surprise to
Prof. Nordenskjold that, during his numer-
GUS expeditions within the Arctic circle, in
regions where animal life is abundant, he has
found only very few remains of animals
which died natural death. No one has
any idea of what becomes of the bodies of
such animals, and it is indeed very strange,
as he remarks, that on pitzbergen it is
easier to find bones of gigantic lizard of
remote geological time than those of
same is also true of some places not so far
north.
The presence of even 10000 Of q
pound of antimony in a pound of melted
lead oxidizes ard burns, and lead contain
ing more than 1-l400 of its weight of cop
per has been foaud to be unfit for the man.
ufacture OF white lead.
The only land from which the total
phase of the solar eclipse Of September Sth
can be seen is New Zealand. The tctaiity
lasts only two minutes End half An ex-
pedition will be Sent from Melbourne to
observe it.
An equivalent of $25OO has been offered
for safe substitute for gunpowder in coal
mining.
THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.--"Men of sience,"
says Proctor, anent a recent speculation on
supposed organic remains found in a me-
teorite, "may amuse themselves by speak
ing of life being brought to the earth by
the arrival of meteor, in reality frag-
ment Of some Once-peopled world which
has been destroyed by conflict with another
or by internal disturbance. But this is
more scientific Jest than grave reality.
Astronomy knows nothing of worlds COM
ing into conflict. On the contrary, the
laws of motion assure us that if anything
is SO unlikely that it may be regarded as
absolutely impossible, it is the encounter
of two orbs in mid space; nor have we any
reason to suppose that planet can be rent
into fragments by internal commissions. If
we had, we have not the slightest reason
for supposing that Orbs thus unfortunate
would be more likely to be inhabited than
their more lucky worlds. If these were
inhabited already we gain nothing by
bringing to them the fragments of other
worlds which have exploded; and if they
were not inhabited, whilst the burst or
shattered worlds were, we are called on to
imagine the absurdity that only inhabited
worlds are liable to destruction, for the
benefit of those which are without inhabi-
tants. To which absurdity this is super
added, that the seeds of life would survive
the destruction of their planet home, and
the journeyipgs through millions on mill
lions of years which science assures us they
would have to make through the cold of
any other world. And all these absurdities
to no purpose, so far as the origin of life is
concerned, for they take us back but step,
which brings US in reality no nearer to all
life"
SOLAR PowER.-The light of the sun is
estimated to equal in quantity 1,575, ,000,-
900, 900, 600, 900, 900, 100000 candles; the
lights intensity at the suns surface being
1870, 900 that of candle flame, $500 times
that of metal in Bessemer converter, 146
times that of calcium light, or 3.4 that of
an electric arc. The temperature, accord
ing to Rosette, is about $4,000 degrees
Fahr. The mechanical equivalent of the
solar radiation, continuously acting, is
nearly 10000 horse power per square foot
of solar surface.
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS ON EARTH
QUAKEs.-Anaxagoras the Rhodian, held
that earthquakes are nothing but a sort of
cosmic flatulence winds which have
strayed into caverns, where they cannot
find an outlet. Aristotle ascribed them to
vapors generated by the infiltration of
water through the assures of a rocky sea-
bottom; and Pliny, to the pressure of air
in deep caves, confined and reacting against
the collapse of superintendent rock-strata.
offered by St. Thomas of Aquinas, who
by the struggles of defunct misbelievers
trying to escape (by a simultaneous stam-
pede, perhaps) from pit Of torment.
INSECT PAIN.-Shakespeare betrayed
an Ignorance Of insect anatomy when he
wrote, s'The poor beetle that we tread upon,
in corporal sufierance feels pang as great
us when giant dies" Minute dissections
have proven that insects, though possessed
of nerves. have no well-detlned organs rep
resenting the brain, the seat of concentrated
feeling, where all the nervous connections
meet They have, instead, chain of gan
glia or bundles Of nerve-substance, from
each of which nerves branch out to con-
tiguous parts; so that the sensations are
not all carried to one grand focus of acute
sensibility as with us. but form in fact
separate systems, any one of which might
be destroyed without disturbing the sensa-
ton of the others. Sleeping moths may be
pinned to trees without feeling pain enough
to awaken them; and it is related that a
dragon-fy, whose long abdomen an ento-
mologist had accidentally severed from the
rest Of the body, suffered SO little inconve-
nience or loss of appetite that it at once
greedily devoured two small flies.
Mounds resembling those of Ohio exist
near Kalgan, China, and in one has been
| found a stone Ratchet which is said to De
| indisguishable from those shown as the
work of the ssmound -builders' of ancient