The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-08-12
CURIOUS, USEFUL AND SCIEN.
TIFIC.

DIR. Fothergill is a theorist on the subject
Of malt as food. Among other things, he
recommends lemonade made with malt in
stead of sugar.
An invention which will be of great service
has Just been patented by Mr.. Crammond, of
Belfast. 1t shields the wheels of train cars
so as to prevent the posi- blllty of injury to
any person from falling betweenn them.
Though simple, 1t fulfills its purpose.
Decaying wood. the Sanitary Engineer says,
is an unsafe thing because it is great as
sistant in the contraction of yellow and
typhoid feveTs.
A theory new and novel is that the vast
depre ssions of the ocean beds are TO be ac-
counted for by supposing that the moon broke
away from the earth more than 50,000000
years ago. The basins are the scars then
made.
In Paris remarkable success has attended
experiments in photographing the country
from captive ballon. The operators re-
main upon the ground, and open the valve of
q panoramic object glass by means of an
electric current.
statement in the Ontario Forestry report
shows that the right way to transplant fine
trees is TO take them up early in the spring,
and keep the roots encased in frozen ball OF
earth. 10 be removed Nith the tree. Out of
$50 young pines moved in this manner some
years ago all but five lived.
Between ordinary rain and thunder rain
the only difference is the more abundant de-
velopment of electricity in what has received
the name of thunder rain. Generally the
raining cloud must be regarded as a constant
lv flowing source of electricity. There can be
no lightning without rain and thunder. The
so-called harvest lightning is merely a
distant storm.
Prof Tromholt, in Norway, has met with
martial in nh flo
borealis feat which his many failures had
led him TO pronounce impossible. After ex-
posing plate for eight and a half minutes
he secured negative of an aurora, but the
impression is so very faint that it cannot be
reproduced as positive.
The Glasgow Philosophical Society has
demonstrated tllat at about I'D degrees be-
low zero, Fahrenheit, the flesh of animals
becomes so hard as to ring like porcelain
when struck, and also to be capable of being
crushed TO fine powder. Microbes, how
ever, living in the flesh before freezing have
been found alive when thawing took place,
after an exposure of 200 hours TO this intense
cold.
A forcible illustration of the Weight of
the atmosphere was given by Professor S. p.
Langley, the American astronomer, in re-
cent lecture in London. He remarks that
the air, so limpid thai it scarcely appears to
be matter at all, is so enormous in mass that
it really presses with nearly ton to each
square foot, so that the weight of all the
buildings in the worlds metropolis, for in
stance, is less than that of the air above
them.
The celebrated old Moorish editices Pena
Caste and the Royal Palace, at Cintra, Portu-
gal, have recently been connected by tele-
phone by the Eisenhower Bell Company
in Europe. AS the castle is situated on the
summit of precipitous rocks, and surrounded
by considerable timber, it was matter of
some difficulty to make the connection. The
rather novel method employed was entirely
successful. Rockets, with thin cords attached,
were fired over the intervening rocks and
trees, and this communication established,
the line wire was easily drawn into place.
well known physician in British India
wants to make criminals, who have been sem
fenced to death, useful as subjects of expert
ment, for the purpose of ascertasring how to
treat cholera successfully. He would take
any prisoner under sentence of death who
gave his consent, experiment uron him, and
if the experiment itself did net result fa-
tally, spare the prisoners life. As the num-
Der of capital convicts in British India is be-
tween 800 and 400 year, there would prob
ably be plenty of candidates for the chance
of escape thus afforded.