The Democrat. (Scotland Neck, Halifax Co., N.C.) 1884-1896, 1888-11-01

SCIENTIFIC SCRAPS

The earth is shrinking about two
inches every year.
Pieces of card board saturated with
. carbOlic acid will xii, flies more surely
than anything else.
Females are more liable to attack
from scarlet fever after infancy than
males, but attacks among males are
more fatal.
Recent observers attribute the sup
posed oscillations in the shores of the
Baltic and Black Seas to changes in the
volume OF water caused by varying rain
fall and overflow
An Eogish physician, has convinced
himself that diphtheria has It's origin in
common mould fungi, which he thinks
must fcquiro virulent properties under
special conditions.
Carbolic acid is a substance extracted
from coal tar. 1t is one of the best dis
infectants, and being very volatile, if
readily difusod through the air,
neutralizes any excretions of gases that
may be present.
According to the most eminent au-
thorities minute quantities of lead
introduced into and accommodating in
the system, must rank among the
causes of an emia and defective nutri-
ton in large towns.
A Russian physician reports the case
of boy five years Old whose pulse was
only thirty two to the minute. Under
treatment for cerebral az amia, the
pulse gradually rose to sixty, but could
not be made to go higher.
Variations in the apparent height of
the shores are now thought to be duo to
changes in the level of the water, es-
pccially marked near the apex of the |
funnel, whero the recorded changes in
the coast-line reach twenty to twenty
three feet.
Greenhouse Strawberries take about
six weeks to fully ripen. A peculi2rity
OF hothouse ripening is that, instead of
ripening first at the stem, gradually ex-
tending to the point, as is the case in
the field berry, the greenhouse berry
ripcns at the point first.
Professor Proctor has already given
reasons for thinking that two of the
short period comets were asteroids
drawn from their orbits by Jupiter's at
traction, and he now advances evidence
tending to show that the entire twenty
were originally small planets.
1t will probably surprise most people
to learn that both cessation of respira-
ion and of movement OF the heart are
rejected as signs of death by a French
ccturcr in considering the precise
moment when life ceases. Heart beats
lave been known to continue for an
lour after the body was beheaded,
while, on the other hand, they may
cease in fainting.
The Spanish physician gives a new
method of distinguishing between
luman and animal blood. Mixed with
| little bile small crystals form in the
blood, which in man are right-angled
}risms; in the horse, cubes; in dogs,
iSht-angled prisms very similar to
hose in human blood; in sheep, rhom-
'oidal plates; in pigs, rhomboids, and
chickens, more or less regular cubes.
An instrument called the AUTOGRAPHED
reter, which records automatically the l
typography and difference Of level Of "
IL places over which it passes, is a new
French invention, the utility of which
annot certainly be questioned if it re-
Lies the results claimed for it. 1t is
arried about on light vehicle, and
hose who wish to use it have nothing
0 do but to drag it, or have it dragged
yer the ground of which they desire to S
btain plan. ]