Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-04-21
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
compiled for the SPECTATOR.


SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
compiled for the SPECTATOR.
AN ENTERPRIsING INsECT.-A most re-
markable instance of the extension of the
geographical distribution Of a species is
found by Mr.. J. J. Walker, of the British |
Navy, in the beautiful butterfly Anosia
plerippats, L., or Ddnais archippus, FL
Starting from its original home on the |
American continent where it is common
from the Hudson's Bay territory to the
estuary of the Rio de la Plata, this butter
fly has been spreading, under our observa-
ton, into very remote regions. Crossing
2, $50 miles of ocean to the Sandwich Is
lands, it rapidly and steadily continued its
course over the whole breadth of the Pacific
and far into the Malay Archipelago. South
ward and westward it has appeared in New
Zealand and Australia. Eastward it has
reached the West Indies, the Azores, and
within the last ten years has even made its
advent in the British Isles.
ANTIQUE MARBLEs.-A recent interest
ing discovery is that of the ancient quarries
where the beautiful antique marbles were
obtained. In the province of Oran, Algiers
has been opened an extensive deposit con-
tanning gallo antico breccia and cipoline,
besides black and white marble. Until
this rediscovery the beautiful yellow marble,
gallo antico, has been unknown save by
fragments found in Roman ruins two or
three years ago.
A glass of greatly improved quality has
been made by Dr. Carl Zess, of Jena, for
microscope detectives. Lenses of the new
glass give images of wonderful clearness,
and have greater resolving power than has
| hitherto been known.
By a new German process finely divided
tin is precipitated upon textile fabrics, Civ
ing flexible and brilliant coating.
A young German chemist has kept blood
uncoagulated for many days by coating the
interior of its receptacle with oil.
SOLAR Observation-Disclosures text
books place the suns density at a little
more than that of water, but in recent
lecture Mr.. j. Norman Lockyer, the Eng
lish astronomer, expressed the opinion that
the sun really has not more than one-eighth
the density of water. If this view be cor
rect, the sun is simply an enormous globe of
glowing gas, possibly liquid at the centre in
consequence of the enormous pressure exist
ing at that part. Solar temperature is a
matter at which men can only guess as yet,
and scientific estimates range from 5000 to
Is, 1000, 600 degrees.
| OcEAN-MoUNTAINs "A French geologist,
Mons. de Lapparent, lately called the atten-
ton of the Paris Geological Society to the
effect gravitation has in heaping up Sea-
water about the land. The continents are
thus all situated at the tops of hills Of wat
er; and in crossing the Atlantic the ship has
first to go down hill, then to cross a valley,
and finally to climb another hill. The cal
culation has been made that in mid ocean
| the surface may be more than half mile
| $1,000 metres) below the level it would have
if the continents exerted no attraction.
A RARE FIND.-The brick clay deposits
of Hainstadt, Germany, have been found by
DR.. Strohecker to be singularly rich in sew
eral metals hitherto very scarce, particular
ly cerium, glucinum, lanthanum, didymium
and yttrium. The first two of these metals
seem to be in sufficient abundance to ma
| terially increase the worlds supply.
Leaves of larch which had been rolled in
to balls-the largest more than a foot in
diameter-by the whirling motion of water
| have Just been exhibited before the Berne
Naturalists' Society. Such balls, free from
cementing mud, are formed in certain Swiss
lakes, and in other places are produced from
various plants.
The Dammar bee (Trigona louiceps) of
Burmah makes a nest in hollow trees from
resin collected in the forests.
| PAsTEUR's METHoD.-If section of the
spinal cord of a rabid dog be inserted into
the brain of rabbit by trephining, the lat
ter animal becomes mad in about fifteen
days; and when the virus from this rabbit
is transmitted to q second, and from the
second to a third, and so on, by the same
method of incubation, the rabies soon be-
comes more and more pronounced, and the
developing or incubation period becomes
shorter and shorter, until at the end of fifty
inoculations 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 similar Sec
lions of spinal cord may therefore be relied
upon to produce exactly similar effects. 1t
has been further shown that the viruence
of the pieces of cord slowly and quite regu-
larly disappears when kept in dry air, and
remains unaltered when preserved in car
bonic acid gas. An understanding of these
principles makes it possible to have con-
stantly on hand hydrophobic poison varying
in strength from harmless mildness to dead.
Hest virulence. 1t is upon these graduated
poisons that Pasteur depends for his re.
markable method of protecting the animal
system from hydrophobia. Experimenting
first with dogs, little meat broth contain
ing weak virus was injected under the skin
the first day, and was followed daily by in
jections of increasing virulenee-that liz,
preparations from cord of shorter exposure
to air-until in a few days the fresh or
strongest virus was used, when it was de-
monstrated that without injury the animals
had become entirely refractory to rabies
from bites-even when inflicted before
treatnent-or NEGOTIATIONS of any degree.
| The method was first tried ON human sub
ject in July, 1885, when immunity was con-
ferred within ten days on a boy considered
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.
NTANTED! WANTED! WANTED!!.