The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-10-13
ObntptEed for TAs ASkGas0s0 7f0UsIer. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

It is not yet known why the shell of the lobster turns red on being boiled.
 The question is asked, why women always (with exceedingly rare excep- tions) button from right to left, and men from left to right.
 A Vienna theatre has an electric or gan, which is placed at the back of the stage and connected by a cable with a key board in the orchestra.
 Experiments have been made in Russia on the culture of minute para sitic plants for the destruction of in- furious insects. Caterpiiiars feeding on the beet-root were abundantly de- stroyed. Various such parasites have been known to produce epidemics in insects.
 A tribe called Cafusos has sprung up in Brazil from crossing between the long, stiff- haired natives and the imported negro slaves. The admix- ture of such extremes has produced extraordinary hair, which rises per- pendicularly in close, curly masses and forms an enormous wig.
 MUCH SwEETNEss.-Pr Prof. Gustav GehriDg states that 5,038,O0O, 900 pounds of cane sugar and 5 5,588, 100000 pounds of beet sugar are produced an- nually. All plants contain sugar, but only four others-the sugar palm of the Indies, the maple tree, the sor- ghum and the sugar corn-are at all used industrially for its extraction {; and from these four the total quantity of sugar obtained is comparatively in- significant.
 MOTHER EARTH's AGE.-A French astronomer, M. A. d'Assier, allows about half million years for the neb- ular and stellar period of the earth's existence, and about 25,000, ,0O0-of which 15,00O,000 have elapsed-for the period of organic beings. At the age of 26, ,000,000 our planet, cold and liteless will receive the moon, and at later period will in turn fall to the dead sun, causing 8 temporary out break of light and heat.
 THUNDER.-According to M. Hirn, the column of air suddenly heated and expanded by a flash of lightning producing the sound known as thun- der-is sometimes several miles long. and as the duration of the flash is not even millionth of second, it follows that the noise bursts forth at once from the whole column, though for an observer at any one place it com- mences where the lightning is at the least distance. The beginning of the thunder-clap thus gives us the mini mum distance of the lightning, and the length of the thunder clap gives us the length of the column.
 REGULATORS OF THE BoDY's FUR NACE.-In paper read before the American Neurological association at Washington, Dr. Isaac Ott showed by cases of disease that there are points in the brain-On the surface and at the base-whose function it is to preside over and keep com tant the heat of the body. He mentioned recorded cases of bodily temperature as high as one hundred and twenty eight degrees Fahrenheit, and as low as ninety -four degrees Fahrenheit, explaining how nervous disease may produce such great changes. He described fever as a disease of the nervous system chiefly, resulting in increased chemical change in the bodily tissues, with con- sequent elevation of temperature.
 A GREAT ELEvAToR.-Quite mar vel of hydraulic engineering is the re- gently completed canal boat elevator at Les Fontinettes, France. The ap- paratus consists essentially of two plate iron sections, called lock cham bers, each poised on 8 piston working in the cylinder of a hydraulic press. When these lock- chambers are ofequal weight, they assume an equal level on the opening of valve to connect the water-columns of the two cylinders but on making the weights sufficiently unequal, one chamber is brought to the level of tho upper canal and the other to that of the lower. Boats of 800 tons are thus enabled to pass from one canal to the other-a change of level of 43 feet-in three minutes, whereas two hours was formerly re- quired to pass the locks. The cham bers are 130 feet long, 19 wide, snd 2 deep, and each weighs 800 tons when full of water. The hydraulic presses, the largest in existence, are 55 feet in height and 63 in diameter. and the in- ternal pressure that they have to re- sist is 27 atmospheres.
 MUSCLE FOR THE OCEAN FERRY.- In his address as president of the British Association for the Advance ment of Science, Sir Frederick Bram. well considered the elevating influence of prime movers as 6 substitute for hand labor, requiring no intelligence, and said: "Compare galley, a ves- sell propelled by oars, with the modern Atlantic liner and first let us assume that prime movers are non- existent and this vessel is to be propelled gal