The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-10-20
ObnspSEsd for TAs Ark@ssas zr0vsIsv. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY

| In four years the British Museum has acquired 270,000 specimens in the department of zoology alone.
 A college for teaching every branch of photography has been established in Berlin and another in Vienna. These institutions are finely equipped and arc supported by the government.
 At the meeting of the British ssso- ciation, Prof. e. F. Fitzgerald dwelt on recent experiments of Hertz, in Germany, as proving conclusiveiy that light is an electro magnetic phenom- enOn.
 The library of the United States geological survey, begun in 1881, now contains about 25,000 bound volumes, more than 10000 pamphlets, and the finest collection of maps in the coun- try-numbering about 10000.
 In the ordinary sixteen candle power incandescent lamp, according to Prof. Ernest Merritt, only from four to six per cent. of the energy actually expended is available as light, the re- mainder being wasted as heat. To lessen this waste is one of the greatest electrical problems now awaiting so- lution.
 A NEW GERMAN ISDUsrRY.-At Halle the skeleton like, fibrous cover ing of 6 species of tropical cucumber is now being converted into a substi- ute for sponge, and is already being exported in immense quantities to England and other countries. The curious substance is known as loofah. It is not only valuable as an adjunct of the bath, but is found useful for making inside soles for shoes, and is being applied to the under side of sad dles to keep the horses back cool.
 COllating all known observations, Dr. E. von Martens, of Berlin, finds that of twenty-seven species of mol fuses found in the Suez canal nine came from the Mediterranean and eighteen from the Red sea and that of sixteen species of fishes reported from the canal six were from the Mediterranean and ten from the Red sea side. Tables of the distribution of these species in the canal show that the admixture of animal life of the the two seas is far from complete.
 WEATHER STATIONS ABOVE THE CLoUDs.-The highest point at which regular meteorological observations are made appears to be in the Andes, in Peru, at 8 height of 14,3O0 feet. Harvard college has weather observ- atory on Mount Lincoln, in Colorado, at height of 14 ,297 feet; and part way up the mountain is another sta tion, 500 feet above the sea-level. The station on Pike's Peak is at an al- titude of IA 100 feet. In Europe there are but two stations at any consider able height, those being at about Ill., 900 feet and 10000 feet respectively. 1 A NOVEL RALwAY.-A Swiss en- gineering novelty-hitherto consid- cred an impossibility-is an inclined railway on which the cars are drawn by cable round a curve. From the Lake of Lucerne the track curves upon an angle of 112 degrees to the summit of the Burgenstock-1,33 ,33O feet above the lake and 2,86O feet above sea-level. The line is 3,050 feet long, and com- mences with gradient of thirty-two per cent, which increases to fifty eight per cent. for more than half of the distance. The motive power is electricity, generated by two twenty five horse power dynamos, worked by 8 water-wheel three miles away.
 WHO WERE THE SKILLED BUILD FRS ?-One of the mysterious ruined cities of southern North America is that of San Guivera, near the western point of Texas. This was known to the early Spanish explorers, but, being at present forty miles from water, it has seldom been visited. A late sur veying party found the ruins to be of gigantic and substantial stone build- ings, one of which was four acres in extent, The indications point to the former existence of 6 dense popula- tion. To the southward is a stream of lava from one to ten miles wide and forty miles long, and the surrounding country is most arid and desolate. No inscription, no legend tells the tale or the great city or of its fate.
 A MISPLACED MNE.-How might the stock of the Panama canal have risen if the French engineers could have invoked to their aid the energy of the terrific explosion that swept away the Japanese peak of Little Bsndai-san on July 15. A wis., itor who spent four days in estimat- ing the spot estimates that this last great mine of natures firing uplifted and widely distributed no less than 700, 900, 900 tons of earth, rocks and other ponderous material, the calcula- tion being based on the very moderate assumption that the debris covers the buried area of thirty square miles to an average depth of fifteen feet. The denuded base of the mountain seems to be between threA and four snuara