The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-10-27
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Ninety-six pounds of iron ore welt
recently found attached to the end OF e
lightning rod removed from the ground
The soil was ferruginous. and it is sup
posed that electricity attracted the ore
to the rod.
DR.. Michael Foster stated before the
British Association that smoking, il
persisted in, and particularly if the same
kind of tobacco was used, produced
"color- blindness in the central field OF
the rcd" That is, such persons Cannot
tell red from some other color. AS a
great many people smoke pers silently 1t
ought not to Re difficult to obtain statis-
tics about this.
Astronomy antedates history. A stone
slab just presented to tho Russian Arch
Biological Society by Prince Puiiatin,
bears carefully, thougi rudely, drawn
representation of the constellation OF the
Great Bear. The slab, with other sreci'
mems of mans work in the stone age,
was dug up ut station at the st. Peters
burg and Moscow railway. Some years
ago similar sab was found near
We'mar.
In an examination of lis persons
for blindness, DR.. Worms, as re-
ported to the Paris Academy of Medi-
cine, has found but two who were in
capable OF distinguishing one color from
another, while three were blind for red
and six for green, eighteen could not dis
tinguish green from red, fifteen saw no
difference between green and blue or
gray, and fifty two had peculiar weak
ncss in color-vision in general.
An analysis of the contents of the
primo pal grenades, tubes, and other pat
ert devices for the extinction of incipi.
ent confagrations has been made by Pro-
fessor Kcd,ie, chemist of tic Agricul.
tural College at Lansing, Mich, He finds
that the only active ing edient in all that
he analy. ed is common salt, and his in.
vestgations 6, to prove what is gencr'
ally known, nancy, that salt water is
better thin fresh water for putting out
fires.
An intelligent physician says: "1t is
a gool rule always to ride up in an ele-
vator, and when coming down to take
the stairs. Like going up hill, walking
upstairs is hard work, and sometimes
risky, especially for people with weak
lungs, defective respiratory organs or
heart disease. But going downstairs
hurts nobody, but is good exercise; going
down on a brisk run is really good
thing-it shakes u. the anatomy. with.
out incurring the danger of physical
over .exertion; this shaklng-up is good
for ones internal mechanism, which it
accelerates, especially the liver. the
kidneys and the blood circulation"
In his presidential address to the Brit
ish Association on the geology of the At
lantic, Sir j. w. Dawson mentioned two
curious paradoxcs concerning the diti-
cult problem of the distribution Of life
over the earth: First, the chances of the
wide distribution of marine species are
not exceptionally grtat, as might be in
ferred, for the reason that the great
depths of the sea have been found to b.
as impossible to most marine animals rs
the md it elf. Second, the deep sea,
which is so great blrrier to the pas
sage Cf shaf1ow-water animals, seems
actually, under certain condit. ons, to af-
ford facilities for the migration of land
animals and plants. greater than those of
unbroken continents.