The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-03-10
cOsptsed for 17s Arkonaa.s Fyessze=. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY,

Dr. W. D. Miller, of Berlin, has
 reduced the proportion of lime salts
 in the teeth of dogs more than one
 per cent by changing the diet of the
 animals for four months.
 The shadow of the total solar
 eclipse of last August was fifty-six
 times as bright as the light of the full
 moon, as estimated by the time re-
 quired to photograph landscape.
 Fresh researches by Brown-Sequard and d'Arsonval confirm the conclu-
 sion that the air emitted from the
 lungs contains a powerful organic
 poison, probably an alkaloid. Further evidence of the nature of the poison is
 being sought.
 A curious phenomenon is reported
 by it's sole observer. In an atmos-
 phere near freezing point, the drops form a moisture laden pine's lower
 branches reached the ground in a
 liquid state, while those from the upper branches, ten feet higher, froze during the fall.
 "When I see," observes MT. Ellers- lie Wallace, "such nonsense as com posite photography gravely treated in scientific manner by respectable magazines that are read by the general public, and even by the journals de- voted to our own craft, can only say that it makes me feel very sorry.o
 DISEASE IN WoRK.-Sedentary oc- equations are reputed to be attended by maladies too numerous to mention but even the outdoor work of the long-lived farmer is not a perfect guaranty of freedom from all ail- ments. A potato-diggers' disease, which has been investigated in Prus- sia, results from strained position of the legs in gathering potatoes. It af- fects the nerves of the feet and leps. producing coldness, numbness and pain, with clumsy and limping gait. It may continue for years.
 A SCIENTIFIC ODDITY.-The model of an earthquake is 8 unique piece of apparatus that has been constructed by Tokio seismologist. Patiently and iaboriously following out the &C., curate records of a modern seismo- graph, Prof. Sekiya has succeeded in shaping long coil of copper wire so as to represent, with the utmost pre- cision, the intricate path described bya shaken spot of the earth's surface. The model magnifies fifty times the grounds absolute motion during sev- enty-two seconds, and resembles g. ball of twine unwound and thrown down in a confused heap. Numbered tags show the progress of the shock for each second of time.
 THE EGYPTIAN LAKE.-The gov ernment of Egypt has been persuaded to make surveys which prove the ex- istence of depressed region nearly sixty miles long by twenty miles wide, reaching depth of 25O to 300 feet below high Nile. This depression has for several years been held by MT. D. Cope Whitehouse to be the site of the wonderful artificial Lake Moeris de- scribed by Herodotus-fictitiou many have believed-with circum- ference of 450 miles. The interest at last aroused in Egypt makes it proba- ble that the Nile will soon be admitted to this valley by canal eleven miles long. The creation or restoration of this great artificial lake will give fertility to wide area, and will re- duce the annual inundations of the Nile, while storing water to replenish the river in dry seasons.
 WIND-MADE SoIL.-Water is not the only physical agent concerned in carrying the earth's solid materials from place to place, modern investi- gations proving that the dust carried by the wind produces astonishing changes in the confguration of the land. The thick deposits covering ancient ruins are now believed to have been largely brought by the air. A French geographer, M. Violet d d'Aouest, after referring to Richthofen's de- scriptlon of vast aerial soil-forma- tion in China, mentions having seen on the Hanks of high mountains in Mex ico clay strata not deposited by the waters nor by the decomposition of the rocks, but produced by the dust raised from the plains by the winds and left on the hills. These deposits vary from 100 to 300 feet in thickness, growing finer with increase in height, and teasing at the limit of vegetation.
 THE UNIVERSAL SoLvENT.-Three things were sought by the ancient alchemist-the philosophers stone, the elixir of life, and the universal solvent. The last of these, though long known to modern chemistry, has just been separated, but cannot be retained simply because it attacks or destroys everything. "This fury of the chemical world," says MT. W. Mattieu Williams, "is the the element fiuorine it exists peacefully in con- pany with calcium in fuor spar and