The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-02-11
Compiled for The Ark0ns0w Traveller. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.


 MT. Robert Terimen enumerating only about 380 species.
 By experimenting on young ani- mals, Dr. r.Kisel, of St. Petersburg, has found that phosphorus never exerts any beneficial effect on the growth of bone, but that, on the other hand, quite small doses produce various symptoms of poisoning.
 Magnifying glasses seem to have been known in the time of Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, who died 478 B. C., for he wrote: "As we use a glass to examine the forms of things, so must we study antiquity to understand the present."
 The wood of the African teak is said to be one of the most remarkable known, on account of it's great weight -42 to 52 pounds per cubic foot,-its hardness and its durability. It has been still sound after a century of service in ships. It is easily worked, though it's silex rapidly wear tools, and it's oil keeps spikes and iron work in contact with it from rusting.
 African sheep, as represented by specimens in the Berlin geological Gardens, vary greatly in size and form, some being large and clumsy, while others are quite small and graceful, with slender, deer like limbs. The color is always black and white, They are not, like European species, covered with wool, but have only stiff, coarse hair, which is short and even, except on the necks of bucks. They are useful only as food, for which they are highly prized by the blacks.
 EFFECTS OF PLANT PARAsITEs.- Plants are injured by parasitic fungi in various ways, according to MT. A. 5. Seymour. They are deprived of nourishment; growth is abnormally accelerated or retarded, causing dis tortion; not only are green parts af- fected, but roots, stems, buds, flowers and fruit; leaves and trust fall prema- turely; decay is produced in ripe fruits before and after removal from the plant and valuable plants receive injury from those of less value by or dinary infection
 ELECTRIC VEHICLEs.-Some five years ago Messrs. Ayrton & Perry showed that trycicles may be driven by elec- tricity, but new vehicle-the cleo tric dog cart of MT. Magnus Volk- seems likely to be much more sugges- tive of practically useful ideas. In the experimental dog cart one- half horse- power motor, weighing forty pounds, gives speed of nine miles an hour on asphalte and four miles on soft macadam. The accumulators, which might be increased in other vehicles, furnish current for a run of six hours.
 DIGGING IN SOFT PLACES. - The Poetsch method, lately applied to making a tunnel under Stockholm, has since been successfully employed in Belgium in sinking a mining shaft through some forty feet of moist sand, encountered at depth of about 225 feet. The process consists in freezing the troublesome soft material, and then excavating it like rock. In the shaft ten iron tubes, about a yard apart and containing other tubes, were forced through the sand to the coal beneath. A very cold liquid chloride of magnesium cooled by ex- pansion of amOnia-was then passed through the inner tubes, returning by the outer ones, when the sand was turned into hard rock for more than ten feet beyond the tubes.
 WORLD ENGLIsH.-The problem of universal language is not solved by Volapuk, in the opinion of Prof. A. Melville Bell, on account of the diffi- culty of keeping in mind the numer- ous endings which distinguish num- Der, gender, case, tense, mood, etc. As more promising system, this em- inent iinguist recommends modified form of English for world language. English is free from the objectionable infections, and it is already reaching out toward universality. While the language must remain substantially as at present, a few simplifying changes would undoubtedly better fit it for international use and if these were suggested by committee of one British and one American member, Prof. Bell believes that a simple and admirable tongue would be pro- duced.
 THE GREATEST OF CREATIONS While the lowest estimate places Sir. ius, the brightest though not the nearest of the stars, as much as 50,ooo, 0,OOO,O0O miles away from us, good authorities" says MT. G. P. Serviss, "regard the distance as being not less than JOG, o,oOo, ,ooO 100000 miles; in which case the stars brilliancy must be as much as 22S times greater than that of the sun. And yet even Sirius is probably not the greatest sun l~1l A. Al