The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-06-30
POPULAR SCIENCE.

There is no patch of the moons visible
surface half mile square that is not ac
curately mapped, according to Professor
Young. while the earth contains immense
tracts, as in Central Africa, which have
never been surveyed.
Little is known of the effect OF solar
eclipses on our atmosphere. To add TO
our knowledge, Norwegian seamen hap
pening to be in favorable localities have
been requested to make barometric ana
thermometric observations during the
next total eclipse of August 29th next.
The great Mexican volcano, Popocata-
pctl, has been remeasured, and found to
be II, 500 feet above the sea. The crater,
which is completely obscured within BY
sulphurous vapor. is about two and half
miles in circuit and 1000 feet deep. The
entire centre of the top of the noun
tain seems to be solid sulphur, which 70
deposited at the rate of ton day.
The general idea that wheat is fertilized
by means of the anthcrs protruding from
the spikelets of the ears while the wheat
is in flower has been proved to be erro-
neous by recent experiments made by
DR.. Paley, an Engishman, and others.
The fact is, the anthers, when protru-
ding from the glumes, have already per
formed the office of fertilization, which
takes place within the closed glumes,
proving conclusiveIv that each glume OF
a wheat ear is bi-sexual and lf-fertiliz-
ing.
The prevention of decay in wood is
said to be effectively accomplished by
exhausting the air from the pores and
filing them with a gutta percha solution,
q substance which preserves the wood
alike from moisture, water and the action
of the sun. The solution is made by
mixing two-thirds Of gutta percha to one
third parrafne, this mixture being then
heated to liquefy the gutta percha, when
it is readily introduced into the pores OF
the wood, the effect of the gutta percha
being, when it becomes cool, to harden
the pores.
An account has just been given of some
remarkable phenomena observed at
Tschcmbar, in Siberia, on night of last
January. A meteor suddenly rushed
across the town, accompanied by gusts
of wind, and burst with great report,
killing q horse on the highway. Ten
minutes later later loud report as of an
explosion was heard, and was followed
directly by still more terrific report,
which shook the ground, overthrew sew
eral houses, and broke the thick ice on
an adjacent lake At the same time a
shock and report were observed at town
q dozen miles away.
The whalebone whales differ from
others in their absence of teeth. At an
early stage of their development they are
present. but disappear and are replaced
in the male by the baleen or whalebone
of commerce This whalebone-that in
the right whale often weighs from 1, 600
to 1900 pounds-is strainer or trap by
which the animal obtains its food, which
consists of minute pelagic animals, jelly
fishes, etc. The whale opens its mouth
as it moves along, and when it is filled
closes it, the water finding its way out
between the plates of whalebone that
serves as complete trap or sieve.
The engineers who made the survey OF
a new railroad at Niagara, which will
run along the bank at the edge of the
river, claim to have discovered some facts
which will surprise scientists. When the
survey was made in 1851 for the suspen-
sion bridge it was claimed from the sur
veys that the river was higher at the
suspension bridge than at the foot of
the falls, and this theory was accepted,
it being claimed that "the immense pres
sure from the falls carried the water up
hill-n The present survey, which gives
the first levels ever taken through the
water line, explodes the uphill theory,
and shows that from the foot of the in
clined road to the cantalever bridge, two
miles, the incline is six feet, and from
the cantalcver bridge to the whirlpool, a
little less than mile, is "a 1-8 feet, thus
giving the water the terrible force it at
tains on going through the whirlpool