The Baltimore County union., 1886-07-03
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

CONDENSED SWEETNESS IN MEDICINE.
At recent meeting of the Royal Dublin Socie-
ty, Prof z. Reynolds called attention to the i'm
portance of saccharin to medical men for sweet
ening the food of patients to whom sugar would
be injurious. This substance, obtained by Prof.
Falberg from coal-tar, is said to be 230 times as
sweet as sugar, and experiments thus far made
have shown no harmful effects from its use. Its
present cost in England is about $40 per pound.
LIGHT TWO MILES UNDER WATER.
In the Lake of Geneva Messrs. Fol and Sarasin
found sufficient light to affect very sensitive
Photographic plates at about $50 feet, the light at
that depth being about equal at mid day to that
at the surface on a clear moonless night In the
Mediterranean during bright sunlight the last
trace of light was lost at depth of 1900 feet
But an examination of the eyes of certain crusta-
ceans lately dredged from the abyssma regions Of
the Atlantic convinces Prof. S. J. Smith that,
despite the objections of physicists, some light
probably reaches even beyond $4,000 feet He
thinks that, on account Of the purity Of the water
in mid d-ocean, light might reach this depth as
readily as 5000 feet on even 1900 feet near the
shore.
FORCE OF ARROWS.
Wonderful stories having been told of the feats
of savage archers in piercing armor, and trees
several inches in diameter, Prof. o. T. Mason, of
the Smithsonian Institution, requests archery
clubs to make careful experiments upon the dis
tance of range, greatest distance of accurate pro-
lection, momentum at leaving the bow, and pene-
trating power into animals of arrows.
THE SEA AS A GERMICIDE.
The sea is the tomb of mouds and of all aerial
germs. Near continents the land winds always
drive before them an atmosphere laden with mi
croscopc life, but at so miles from the coasts
this npurity has d rrea red according To Messrs
Morean and MIGUEL. Pestllential atmospheres
are rapidly purified by the sea, every expanse Of
a certain breadth thus forming an impossible OBJ
stace to the spread of epidemics. Sea-winds
sensibly cleanse the air of the land over which
they pass, this publication being recognized in
France as far as Paris.
FAMILIAR PHENOMENON.
The apparent remarkable enlargement of the
flament of an electric incandescent lamp on be-
coming white-hot is explained by the fact that
when some of the nerve-ends Of the retina of the
eye are excited by light the excitement extends to
some degree to the neighboring nerves. Thus a
narrow white-hot wire or thread affects, especially
from distance more nerve-fbres of the retina
than really receive the light rays, and the sensa
tion is that of large wire. This is the phenom-
enon called irradiation.
THE DAYS OF RED-Hor OCEAN.
Mr.. Richard A. Proctor, the English astronomer,
remarks that the present denuding effects of air
and water are absolutely as nothing compared
with the action of the denuding forces which must
have been in operation when the earth was young.
The oxygen and nitrogen of the all. are but
residuum of what was once there. But besides
these gases, now in due proportion to support the
earth's life, there were immense quantities of
carbonic acid gas, of suphurous acid, sulphureted
hydrogen, chlorine, boracic acid, and other de-
structive gases, some ready to assume the liquid
form and so to be still more destructive. But
there must also have been immense quantities of
water in the form of vapor. The pressure of that
primeval atmosphere must have been SO great
that the waters of such oceans as then existed
could have turned into steam only at tempera-
ture SO far above the boiling point at the present
atmospheric pressure that the surface of the ocean
must actually have glowed with inherent luster
The water vapor in the air must have been steam
at high pressure and intensely hot. The rains
falling then must have been torrents of hot water
impregnated with destructive acids and falling on
intensely heated rocks, ready for most rapid
change by the powerful influences of such deluges
and Of the dense, complicated and destructive at
mosphere through which they fell.
MISCELLANEOUS
From many experiments on flies, beetles, and
other insects, Mons. Plateau concludes that in
sects with compound eyes, with or without simple
eyes, are able to ditinguish form by vision only
very imperfectly if at all.