The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-09-18
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Leprosy Is really increasing III palIs VI
India and South Africa.
There are 1900 central electric light
stations in various parts of the country.
The important scientific meetings in
Paris this year will number at least
seventy.
A scientist has discovered the advan-
tage of dark skin as veil against the
heat in hot climates.
The Webster process for the treatment
of sewage by electricity is about being
experimented with in the Medway River,
England.
In the steamer City of New York there
are eighteen electric lamp circuits, with
total of seven and one-half miles of wire
and 1117 lamps.
The Danish Government is taking the
lead in matters relating to establishing an
electrical connection with light ships and
isolated lighthouses.
The large equatorial instrument in the
new observatory at Berlin is over sixteen
feet in length and has lens about twelve
and half inches in diameter.
By the new welding process, in which
electricity is used, the rails of street or
steam railways can be welded together,it
is said, after being placed in position.
Variations in the downfall of snow have
from recent observations in the Himalya
Mountains been found to exercise an
important influence on the monsoon rains
of Upper India.
Experiments in the compressibility Of
sugar have brought about the conclusion
that sugar in solution increases the in
ternal pressure, but not to the same ex-
tent that common salt does.
The chances for loss of life in railroad
accidents in this country are one person
killed for every 10, 600, 900 carried. Sta
tisticians claim that more people are killed
every year by falling out of windows than
there are in railroad accidents.
T.. A yellow pigment, which is found in
its purest form in the common English
birthstone butterfly, can be obtained from
the wings by simple treatment with hot
water, somewhat less than milligram of
pigment being yielded by each insect.
The relation of rising to falling ba-
rometer with rain points to the conclu-
sions that at Philadelphia the amount of
rain which falls while the barometer is
descending is nearly three times as great
as that which falls while the barometer is
rising.
Some twenty years ago, Herr Falb, an
Austrian scientist, first suggested the pos
sibiity that the moon may act upon the
great ocean of molten matter beneath the
earth's crust exactly as it acts in produc-
ing the tides of the eternal ocean Of
water.
It will cost $4,000 to purchase the
horses necessary to run 16-foot car 12O
miles a day. Whereas the cost of a
storage battery for similar amount OF
work is $500. And the latter can be
maintained for about one-half the cost of
keeping the horses.
AMr. Bolton in recent visits to Egypt
and Mount Sinai measured the maximum
angle at which dry sand will Lie at rest,
and found it to be from thirty-one to
thirty-two degrees; higher than this it
will move down the slope. This does not
accord with the well known formula In
text books.
Seventy six species of golden rod
(solidago1 are described in Professor
Gray's Worth american Flora. The
geographical area of distribution extends
from Labrador and Hudson's Bay to
Florida and Mexico, and from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. Every State has
one or many species.
The probable average ratio of deaf
mutes to the population at large, Is one
to 1900, and this would give about q
million deaf mutes in the world, and yet
Gin the United States at leasD the deaf
forms the smallest element of the defec'
tive classes, including under this term the
blind, idiotic and insane.
The San. Diego CAL, Union says: a
scientific gentleman, who has Travelled ex'
tensively in Europe and other countries,
| while on recent visit here examined the
kelp which is so abundant along the sea-
shore lear San Diego and pronounced ii
rich in iodine, being of the same charac'
ter as that found on the coast of the
Mediterranean, from which most of the
iodine of commerce is manufactured.