The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-03-03
POPULAR SCIENCE.

At recent lecture delivered in Phila-
delphia by a prominent scientist, the gen
tleman said it takes prodigious amount
of vegetable matter to form layer OF
coal; that the present growth of the
world. would make a layer only one
eighth of an inch thick, and that it
would take a million years to form coal
bed 100 feet thick.
From English mortality statistics ex-
tending over a considerable period, DR..
William Ogle finds that the death rate
among clergymen is lower than that In
any other occupation. If the mortality
for the three years 1880-82 among min
listers be represented by $50, that among
farmers will be denoted by 631, among
lawyers by s41, and physicians by 1922.
A member of the London Microscopical
society has decribed case illustrating
the value of the microscope as detective
agent Fraudulent additions were made
to bond, and the ink being darker than
the forger traced over the whole writing
to give it uniform shade. Under the
microscope the difference between the
original and the added portion was clearly
discernible, and the forgery was estab-
Gshed.
The progress of science and the arts
has no stronger confirmation than in the
methods of utilizing waste products or of
endowing them with properties which
render them of increased value to indus
try, and when waste scrap iron and the
gals on the oak are converted into ink;
or the badly-smelling waste of gas works
is transformed into fragrant essences,
brilliant dyes or material for fertilizing
land; or when the effetc matter of ami
mails or old bones is changed into lucifer
matches.
Commenting on Lieutenant Greely's
discovery of coal within the Arctic
circle in Greenland, Mr.. W. Mattieu
Williams expresses himself as dissatisfied
with the prevailing notion which de-
mands a sub-tropical climate for the
formation of carboniferous deposits. He
has himself described the deposition of
the coal that is in actual progress at the
present time in Norway, within four de-
grecs of the Arctic circle, and believes
that similar deposits may be found farther
north. No very violent alteration of eli
mate, therefore, need be assumed to ex-
plain the Greenland coal.
Scientific men have been perplexed for
many years over the phenomenon of a
certain we'll at Yakutsk, Siberia. A
Russian merchant in 1928 began to dig
the we'll, but he gave up the task three
years later, when he had Dug down thirty
feet and was still in solidly frozen soil.
Then the Russian Academy of Sciences
dug away at the we'll for months, but
stopped when it had reached depth of
3s9 feet, when the ground was still frozen
as hard as a rock In 1914 the academy
had the temperature of the excavation
carefully taken at various depths, and
from these data it was estimated that
the ground was frozen to depth of 612
feet. Although the pole of the greatest
cold is in this province of Yakutsk, not
even the terrible severity of the Siberian
winters could freeze the ground to
depth of 600 feet. Biologists have de-
cided that the frozen valley of the lower
Lena is formation of the glacial period.
They believe, in short, that it froze solidly
then and has never since had chance to
thaw ort