The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-11-28
Compiled for fzs AnKAzsAw TRAvxau
 SCIENTIFIC MIScELLAn,

Compulsory re-vaccination of tb. ,.,
 diers was established by the German go,..-
 ment elevez years ago, and since then ,..
 single death from smallpox has occu,,.s .
 the German army.
 The scientific importance of explo1,.
 the accessible regions about the South D.,
 is urged by Sir Erasmus Ommany, of N.
 British navy, who remarks that no usoL.
 ever wintered in the Antarctic rsne.
 Although four fifths of the worlds ol
 phur supply comes from Sicily, the depo,,.
 of Popocatape,l in Mexico are much no.
 extensive and of better quality. A tunnel :
 to be built to facilitate mining the Mer,.,. sulphur.
 The island of Aron, of the west Goa,
 of Scotland, is said to be so mild tha, pa,, and camellias thrive in the open air, w;,ho., ! injury in the winter, although the latitud. i, that of the northern part of Labrador on hs continent.
 French vineyards have recently spt fered sadly from mildew. As a remedy t.. the disease sulphate of copper has been ,r.d and has proven successful both in the form of five per cent. solution and in mi,,r,. with lime.
 Four great tubes-one about 200 G- long-have been fitted up at the Muedou oh. servatory in France for the spectrosconi. study of the oxygen, hydrogen and other .. ments present in the air. Solar, electric a,a other lights can be conveniently emplu,s for illumination.
 An electric needle and battery are DO, used quite extensively for destroyirg ,A. roots of offensive hairs upon the face. lpM. case Of young woman With heavy bes,t s,ooo hairs were removed, the process ,A qu'ring two or three ye ars, each root hayi,, to be killed separately.
 The greatest as ronomical establish. ment in the world, The Greenwich Obser.. tory, is surpassed in the power of its tel,. scopes by many observatories. It has at laa been decided 10 provide for it a large instru. ment, and it will soon have refractor with an object-glass 2s inches in diameter.
 After an absence of nearly three yeau the Danish exploring expedition to the saa coast of Greenland has returned. The e,. petition succeeded in req aching the sixty s1,b degree of latitude, a point farther north tba, had previously been attained. The newly wis. ited region was named King Christian IXs| Land.
 A new spectroscope has been exhib. i'ed to the Paris Academy of Sciences. Al very dlspersive medium, such as carbO, disulphide, is enclosed between plane pars. lei surfaces, and the internal dispersion give. very fine spectrum. The colored rays is. sue by the second surface of the medium, parallel to the incident rays.
 Air Food of Plants The experiment, of Prof. w. O. Atwater have shown that con. trary to the general opinion of chemists, plants assimilate nitrogen from the air. Whl. they take up the greatest quantity when abur. dantly supplied from the soil fully ore hail the total nitrogen acquired by well-fed plans IS drawn from the atmosphere.
 Fresh evidences of the tremendor, energy of the great krakatoa eruption in lava continue to be brought forward. Rev. Philip Neale, late British chaplain at Batavia. nov mentions finding immense blocks of coral rock-one of them weighing at least fifty tons which must have been torn from their ocean pea and swept several miles inland by the gigantic tidal wave in Sunda Straits.
 In the well-known game of "hop scotch" MT. l. w. Crombie reads A cu,iou, page of the history of past ages form oi the game was known to Pliny, and seems to have been changed by the early Christian, into an illustration of their belief, the fpur. representing their idea ofthe shape ofbeayer and the divisions showing the proeressiy. states to be passed by the soul ln it's flight paradise.
 The Sleep of Fishes Experiments on the sleep of fishes have been made in Lon. don by Mir. W. August Carter. Hehas found that the fresh water fishes observed-h. roach, dace, gudgeon, carp, tepch, minnov, and catfsh-s sleep periodically like terrestrial animals. The same is true of some marine hshes-such as the wrasse, conger eel. dory doghsh, wrasse bass, and all species of hu the goldfish, pike, and angler fish do not appear to sleep at all, although they rest periodically. The desire for sleep varies according to weather conditions, and dshes do not necessarily select nighttime for re- pose.
 Literary prophets.-After Halls dis. covery of the two moons of Mars in 1877, il was pointed out that Swift, in "Gullvers Travels" had prophetically made the Lili- putian astronomers discover the two sa,e ites. A still more curious circumstance $ now mentioned by pr. Sophus Tromholt who relates that in 1881 sto was published by Hungarian author, Maurus Jokai, ia which reference was made to the star which has recently appeared in the Andromedi nebula. The star, according to the stor, was revealed to royal family by the evil spirit. who predicted death in battle to thos: hn rn nal RnHc Tzl~ -H-