Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-04-28
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
GCompiled for the SPECTATOR. I


CONDENSED SWEETNESS IN MEDICINE
At recent meeting of the Royal Dublin
Society, Prof. E. Reynolds called attention
to the importance of saccharin to medical
men for sweetening the food of patients to
whom sugar would be injurious. This sub
stance, obtained by Prof. Falberg from
coal-tar is said to be $50 times as sweet as
sugar, and experiments thus far made have
shown no harmful effects from it's use. Its
present cost III 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 clear moon
less night. In the Mediterranean during
bright sunlight the last trace of light was
lost al depth of /, 800 feet. But an ex
animation of the eyes of certain crustaceans
lately dredged from the abyssmal regions
of the Atlantic convinces Prof. S. ]. 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-ocean, light
might reach this depth as readily as 5000
feet or even 1900 feet near the shore.
FORCE OF ARRows.-Wonde stories
having been told of the feats of savages
archers in piercing armor, and trees several
inches in diamater, Prof. O. T. Mason, of
the Smithsonian Institution, requests arch
cry clubs to make careful experiments upon
the distance of range, greatest distance of
accurate projection, momentum at leaving
the bow, and penetrating power into animals
of arrows.
A french microscopic has studied the &C
ton of the various condiments on the tissues
of the oyster, and recommends lemon juice
as the most valuable, as it destroys the ami
malculae infesting the stomach of the mol-
lusk.
THE SEA AS A GERMICIDE.-Thes sea is
the tomb of moulds and of all aerial germs.
Near continents the land-winds drive before
them an atmosphere laden with microscopic
life, but at so or rs miles from the coasts
this impurity has disappeared, according to
Messrs. Moreau and Miguel. Presidential
atmospheres are rapidly purified by the sea,
every eXpanse of water of certain breadth
thus forming an impossible obstacle 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.
A FAMILIAR PHENOMENON.-The ap-
parent remarkable enlargement of the fila
ment of an electric incandescent lamp on
becoming 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
sensation is that of a large wire. This is
the phenomenon called irradiation.
Cultivation has so affected the evolution
of the tomato that the seeds are fast disap-
pearing and bid fair to pass out of existence
entirely, as in the case of the banana, leav.
ing the propagation OF the plants Deepen.
dent on cuttings.
A German embryologist, Prof. Gerlack
has devised method for watching the
growth Of unmatched birds through small
glass window made at the sharper end o.
the egg.
From English experiments it appears that
a gas-engine indicating ten horsepower
with coal-gas would barely indicate four
horsepower with hydrogen.
A new quinine- yielding bark has been
brought to Europe from South Africa.
THE DAYS OF A RED HOT OCEAN.-Mr
Richard A. Proctor, the English astrono
iner, remarks that the present denuding eff
fects of air and water are absolutely as moth.
ing compared with the action of the denud-
ing forces which must have been in opera
tion when the earth was young. The
nt,1 NFf I,n ~, but
Iesiduum of what was once there. But be
sides these gases, now in due proportion to
support the earth's life, there were immense
quantities Of oarbonic acid gas, of sulphur
GUS acid, sulphurete1 hydrogen, chlorine,
boracic acid, and other destructive gases,
some ready to assume the liquid forIn and
and so to be still more destructive But
there must also have been immense quaint
ties 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 temperature SO far
above the boiling point at the present at
mospheric pressure that the surface of the
ocean must actually have glowed with in
herent 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, impregnat-
cd 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 atmosphere through which
they fell.
A number of European botanists have
had reason to believe that the seeds of many
New Zealand plants will not terminate
readily until after they have been frozen.-
The same curious observation has been made
in relation to Himalayan seeds.
From many experiments on flies, beetles,
and other insects, Mons. Plateau conclude:
that insects with compound eyes, with Oh
without simple eyes, are able to distinguish
form by vision only very imperfectly if al
all.