The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-04-28
Compiled for The Ark0nsGU 1T0veIer. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY

Railways are said to consume more than half of the worlds production of iron, the 10,000,000 car wheels re- quired in the United States alone talk ing more than 2,OO0,OOO tons.
 From observations on the Congo, M. Dupont, of the Brussels Natural History Museum, is convinced that the waters ill the interior of central Africa once collected in a great lake, of which Stanley Pool is the last rem nant.
 A medical opinion is, that if con- sumption were eradicated from cattle, it would soon disappear from the hu- man race. Five per cent. of English cattle have tuberculosis, and twenty per cent. of some Jersey herds of the United States are said to be affected.
 Parisian physicians are interested in a new spectroscope, the invention of Dr. Henocque, for investigating the changes of the blood in patients. It is being applied to the study of the phenomena of nutrition, and is ex- pected to prove an important instru- ment
 The bacillus ot cancer is hard to find, and Dr. Senger reports to the Berlin Clinical Society that he has been unable to verify observations claimed to have revealed the organism. Cancer appears to be peculiar to man, as it has never been inoculated in the lower animals.
 Evidence exists that deaf mutes are not confined to the human race. In farmers herd for twelve years was a COW which never gave any signs of hearing, and whose evident attempts at lowing resulted only in a feeble guttural. Northing abnormal could be discovered in the ears nor in the vocal organs.
 A RAT-PLAGUR. - Several mail routes in Outer Mongolia have had to be altered on account of the appear ance of swarms of rats, whose bur- rows are very dangerous to the mounted couriers, and whose ravages have destroyed all forage for the horses. The pastures have suffered severely from the vermin daring the past two years, and last season nearly every blade ofgrass was eaten up in the infested districts.
 OUR CoLoRs.- Some 150 different colors are now obtained from coal tar, and these have almost entirely SUD- planted vegetable and animal dyes. In fact, only two of the vegetable class-indigo and logwood-are still of any considerable importance. Coal yields a large amount of coloring matter, the magenta from ton being sufficient to dye 800 yards oi flannel the aurine, 120; the vermilline- scarlet, 2,560; and the aligarine, 255.
 UNSAFE SAFEs.-Experiments with new gas blowpipe of Thos. Fletcher, of Warrington, Eng, have demon- strated that there is no longer such a thing as burglar proof safe. With this little fusing apparatus thick iron and steel plates are penetrated as readily as wooden doors with carpen- ters' tools. The instrument was de- vised for machinery repairs, but its adaptability to burglars uses-if made little less noisy-may render necessary re, olution in the making of safes and strong vaults.
 LUNG ExPANsIoN.-Assailing pre- vailing views, Dr. Thomas J. Mays maintains that impure air has little effect in producing pulmonary con- sumption, but that the disease chiefly results from inactivity of the lungs. lcelanders, cOal-miners and others spend much of their lives iu the foul- est atmospheres, and yet they are comparatively free from consumption. The benefit of a mountain climate is not due to lack of atmospheric bacilli but to the enforced expansion of the lungs in the rarefied ain. The cure of the disease is simply 8 mechanical question as to the best mode of ex- banding the lungs, and especially the apices of round -shouldered and flat chested patients, of removing the in- filtrated products already existing, and of enhancing the constitutional resistance. On the whole, the author seems to favor treatment with inha- lations of compressed and rarefied air, combined with abundant gymnastics and inspirations calculated to enlarge the chest capacity.
 ARTIFICIAL SPECIBs-Though it is not certainly known that new spe- cies of animals or plants have been produced artificially, everybody is aware that, by means of intelligent selection, remarkable changes have been sought and accomplished for mans profit and pleasure. Fruits have been improved in size and quail ity, flowers in beauty, and animals in flesh and other products and in phys ical endowments. Mir. Charles Nor ris now urges that such experiments in variation be made for the benefit of science, believing that results not