The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-04-24
Compiled for The Arkansde TrGreler. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

Compiled for The Arkansdtc TrGreler
 SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
 By a new German process finely d, vided tin k precipitated upon text5e fabrics. giving d flexible and brillu., coating
 To eXterminatc the rabbits, win j. have become such plague in AustraGa it is proposed to propagate rontagiou, disease among them, and the evperimelt is to be first tried on Tnrrens Island
 Leaves of lareh which had been rolled into ballS-the largest more than a foot in diameter-by the whirling motion c water have just been exhibited betaro the Bcrne Naturalists' Society Such balls free from cementing mud, ar formed in certain Swiss lakes and n other places are produced from various plants.
 Antique Marbles-A recent interest. ing discovery is that of the ancient quarries where the beautiful antique marbles were obtained In the province of Gran, Algiers, has been opened an eX- tensive deposit containing giallo antieo breeeia and cipoline, besides black and white marble Until this re-dseovery the beautiful yellow marble, giallo antieo has been unknown save by fragment, found in Roman ruins two or three years ago.
 Solar ce.-Astronomical text books place the suns density at littl. more than that of water, but in a recent lecture Mr. T. Norman Lockver, tn. English astronomer, expressed the opiu, ion that the sun really has not more than onc-cighth the density of water If this view be correct, the sun is simply an enormous globe of glowing gas, pos sibly liquid at the center in consequence of the enormous pressure existing at that part Solar temperature is a-mat= ter at which men can only guess as Vet. and scientific estimates range from .OUO to lS00OO00.
 raetcul', Methodl-If d section of t!.e spinal cord of a rabid dog be inserted into the brain of a rabbit by trephinins the latter animal becomes mad in about fifteen days; and when the virus from this rabbit k transmitted to second I I .I
 by the same method of inoculation, the rabies soon becomes more and more pronounced and the developing or in cuhation period becomes shorter and shorter until at the end of fifty inocu- lations most severe form of madness results in about seven days The virus from the last rabbits is of great purity and of invariable strength, so that simi- lar sections of spinal cord may there fore be relied upon to produce exactly similar effects. It has been further shown that the virulence of the piece, of cord slowly and quite regularly dis appears when kept in dry air. and re- mains unaltered when preserved in car. bonic acid gas An understanding ot these principles makes it possible to have constantly on hand hydrophobic poison varying in strength from harm less mildness to deadliest virulence. It k upon these graduated poisons that Pasteur depends for his remarkable method of protecting the animal system from hydrophobia. Experimenting first with dogs, a little meat broth contain ing weak virus was injected under the skin the first day, and was followed daily by injections of increasing viru- , lence-that Is, preparations from cord of shorter exposure to air-until in few days the fresh or strongest virus was used when 1t was demonstrated that without injury the animals had become entirely refractory to rabies from bites even when inflicted before treatment or inoculations of any degree The method was first tried on human sub ject in July, 1885, when immunity was within ten days on boy con. sidered to be in great danger. Since then several hundred bitten persons have been treated, and thus far the only failure to prevent hydrophobia has been in single case where the inoculations were attempted too late