The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-06-23
POPULAR SCIENCE.

The Times of India noticing an extra
ordinarily brilliant meteor, when was o.
served in different pats OF the world,
but especially in India, enters into CAL
culation on ascertained data to prove the
rate at which it travelled, and arrives at
the conclusion that the rate was 2,oOo
miles an hour.
It is singular how closely the habits of
the reindeer and the buffalo approximate
to each other. Each have their treeless
prairie but seek the woods in Winter:
each have their woodland species; each
separate when the time comes to bring
forth their young; each mass together In
their annual migrations.
Prof. Leslie predicts that the amazing
exhibition of natural oil and gas which
has characterized the past twenty years,
and will probably continue for ten or
twenty years more, is, nevertheless, no.
only geologically but historically tenn
porary and vanishing phenomenon-one
which young men will live to see come to
its natural end. This opinion, he says.
is the result of both an active and n
thoughtful acquaintance with the sub
ject.
Mcteorologists have found that there
can be no thunder and lightning without
rain. When thunder is heard beneath q
clear sky, the reports must either come
from distant clouds or be the result OF
some other cause than discharge OF
electricity. Harvest or heat lightning is
produced by distant storm. Thunder
seldom ACCOMPANIES heat lightning, the
sound reaching only about twelve miles,
while lightning is often seen, by refec-
tion upon nearer clouds, at a much greater
distance.
Chronic tea poisoning, according to
DR.. w. N. Bullard, is O frequent atfec-
tion, the most common symptoms OF
which are loss of appetite, dyspepsia,
palpitation, headache, vomiting and
nausea, combined with nervousness, and
hysterlcal and neuralgia affections, fire.
aucntly accompanied by constipation and
pain about the heart. Among adult
women the average amount needed to
cause poisonous symptoms is little less
than five cups daily, but the young and
weak are more easily affected.
Professors Ayrton and Perry, the Eng.
lish electricians, have accidentally OBJ.
served that on amalgamation, or coating
with quicksilver, brass expands, so that
if one side only is amalgamated a plate
of brass becomes curved. They imagine
that this may be the primary cause of the
phenomena of the japanese "magic mir
ror," which has cast on the back pat
tern that is quite invisible on the pol
ished face, yet is mysteriously distinct In
the patch of light reflected by the mir.
ror upon a screen. Amalgamation would
affect the thinner parts made by the pat
tern more than the rest of the plate, CIV
ing the mirror the imperceptble uneven,
ness that becomes plainly apparent in the
reflected image.
The great tidal wave, which makes
nearly two complete circuits of the globe
in every twenty-four hours, is very slight
in mid-ocean, but increases in height in
traversing shallow soundings, and is still
further augmented by converging coast
lines. The eastern coast of North America
has, as laid down by Bache, great
"southern bay" between Florida and
Cape Hatteras, middle bay" between
Hatteras and Nantucket, and an eastern
bay" north of Nantucket; and, while at
Southern Florida the tide is one to one
AND a half feet, at Cape Hattcras two
feet, at Southeastern Nantucket only one
foot, the height within the southern
bay" at Savannah, is seven feet, in the
middle" at the entrance of New York
Bay, five feet, and in the eastern" at
Boston, ten feet, and in the narrow Bay
of Fundy from forty to seventy feet.