The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-02-10
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Muller, German chemist, has fed
! animals ten weeks with dry and with
STEPPED unground Indian corn. The
former showed an average increase In
weight of nearly seven pounds more than
the latter.
If we assume moderate area and depth
of that portion of the globe covered by
the ocean, the quantity of salt that it con-
tains is estimated at six times the volume
of the Alps. Unlike coal, the supply OF
which is being gradually exhausted,
marine salt is absolutely inexhaustlble.
The first archeopteryx, the fossil re-
| mains of the oldest-known bird, which
seems to form the ''connecting link" be-
tween birds and reptiles, was discovered
in the photographic slate of Solenhofen
in 1861. Another specimen, recently
found in the same locality, has been sold
for SIS, 900 to the Berlin museum.
The interesting discovery has been
made in Switzerland OF bright-green
moss growing on calcareous rocks 200
feet below the surface of Lake Leman.
No other moss has been known so far
under water, and how chlorophyl--the
green coloring matter-could have been
so richly developed in place so remote
from the light is problem.
Somebody says in London paper that
the highest velocity yet impaired to a
cannon ball is 1875 feet per second,
equal to a mile in 80 seconds. The
velocity of the earth at the equator, due
to rotation on it's axis, is 900 per hour,
or mile in 3.6 seconds; thus, ifa cannon
ball were fired due west and could main
tain it's initial velocity, it would beat the
sun in it's apparent journey around the
earth.
The denticulated sting of bees, wasps,
and hornets, says NJ Carlet, of Grenoble,
is charged by poison secretcd by two
glands. The secretion of one Of the
glands is acid and that of the other is
alkaline. The poison only produces its
customary effects when both of the fluids
are present in the wound, but the poison,
however, is acid in reaction. Wasps
and hornets inject the venom by means OF
q vesicle with contractile walls. In bees
the poison bag is not contractile, and
there is a kind of poison that works in the
fang like a syringe, so that the syringe is
charged and emptied at each stroke OF
the syringe.
The hummingo of telegraph and tele-
phone wires, so often heard, is generally
considered to be caused by the wind.
Mr.. r. W. Mcbride, Of Waterloo, Ind,
who specially studied the matter for sew
eral years on his private wire, which had
strong gift Of humming, is satisfied that
the wind is not the agent; for he found
the sound more likely to be heard on
dry, clear and calm evening than at any
other time. He is also convinced that
the sound is not produced by electricity,
for he could detect no signs of that agent
when the humming was going on, while
at times when the wire WAS evidently
charged there was no sound.
Climate, the Lancet points out, was
fully appreciated by the Roman physi-
clans of the early ages as remedy or pro-
phylactic. Thus in the terrible plague
that swept Italy in 1873, the Emperor
Commodus, at the instance of his medl-
cal advisers, quilted Rome, where the
mortality was heaviest, for Laurentum,
on the Latin shore. The dense laurel
groves, from which the place took its
name, emitted an odor which seemed to
antagonize the pcstilcnce, and suggested
to the Roman physicians the Inhalation
of aromatic essences as preventive for
those who could not leave the city. The
passage in Herodian e., 12) from which
these facts are taken, is of fmuch interest
to the historian of medicine.