Arizona weekly enterprise., 1890-12-13
Scientific Miscellany.

ARTIFICIAL SKULL SHAPING. Astonlsh- ing success has attended the efforts of pr. Iiannelongue, an eminent specialist of Paris, to give intelligence to a little idiot girl. Though four years old, the child could neither walk nor stand, and never smiled nor took notice of anything. The doctor concluded that the abnormal narrowness of the head obstructed the growth of the brain. and in May last he made an incision in the center of the skull and cut piece of bone from the left side. The result was marvellous. Within less than a month the child could walk, and she had become quite bright-playing smiling, and taking notice of everything around her.
 PAIN-JoY.-A German anatomist has called the attention of his class to cer-
 tain hysterical women who are affected
 with a kind of pain -ioy''-not only ex- periencing no pain from surgical mutlla- ton, but having morbid desire to bear
 without anaesthetcs, operations which
 should prove very painful. A young woman was introduced who had seriously
 injured her lower jaw during a paroxysm
 of hy4teria, but who had insisted on the l necessary removal of part of the jaw and ! ligature of two arteries performed with
 out an anasthetic, and subsequently de
 clared that thc operations had given her
 great pleasure.
 TIE MooN-WEATHER PROBLEM.-ErOm
 tables made by the use of snoptic charts,
 elinating local disturbances, Dr. G. Meyer
 believes he has accomplished what other
 investigators have sought to do without
 success shown an influence of the moon
 on the weather. The height of the ba-
 rometer, in months of September to Jan uary, is lowered at the time of full moon
 and raised during the first quarter. No
 effect can be traced for other months.
 ELEcTRIoITY-AIMEDG GUNS.-In a new
 invention a small dry battery, an electro
 magnetic and circular closer of mercury
 are so arranged in the stock of a gun
 that the weapon can be discharged only
 when elevated to predetermined angle,
 at other positions the trigger Is locked
 and cannot be pulled. The device is
 claimed to insure precision in range and
 accuracy of firing at night when the
 range has been previously obtained.
 ANOTHER SILK.-A substance having
 all the essential qualities of silk has been
 made from wild hemp by Nayemura Sa-
 kusaburo, of Hikone, Japan The plant
 grows on moors and hillsides, and could be cultivated. The fibre is strong and l RlOSSN, anu SeNcTal Sllh ldClOIlcs dlt SellO to have found 1t to be in no way infer
 for to silk.
 THE PoTATo DIsEAsE-In Denmark some interesting, and perhaps very valu . able, researches into the potato disease have been made by Prof. J. L. Jenson The disease is found to consist of fun gus, whose spores are carried by the wind and which first attacks the foliage of tht plants. It spreads to the tubers in abou seven days by spores washed down iron the stem and foliage. Considering thes, facts it was thought that the tubers nigh . be protected by moulding the soil into broad ridge or inches high and 10 O F inches wide, after the first wedding and a further earthing up on one side on ly-causing the plants to bend so tha the spores would fall away from the ridge within seven days after the appearance of the disease on the foliage. Some 15 |, farmers are said to have experimented il this way with these astoEishipg results {, Where no moulding or earthing up va done, the percentage of diseased potatoe: was 34; where the moulding was imperfec . 12; and where the moulding was perfec 3 only l. Infection during harvest wa prevented by allowing the tubers to re main in the ground for month after tn, whitening of the tops.
 CoLB WAvEs.-A cold wave is defined , by Prof. T. Russell as fall of temperatur ill twenty-four hours of 20 degrees eye $ an area of 50,000 square miles, the tenn perature in some parts of this area de scending to 36 degrees. Between 18S and 1890 no less than 691 cold waves wer . recorded in the United States. In tn great cold wave of January IT, 1882, tn fall of 20 degrees extended over an are : of l ,10l GOO square miles, and the fall 0 10 degrees included 2,929, ,00G square miles In six cold waves of the ten years tn area of the fall of 20 degrees was no more than million square miles. Col, ? waves follow day after an area of loy pressure, or occur to the southeast Of al i; area of high pressure, reaching thei greatest extent when both conditions ar present.
 :. NESTS FOR GERMs- The inpuritie that collect under fuger-nails have bee ! investigated in the meteorological labor ! atories of Vienna. The matter obtaine Il in 7S examinations was placed in cultur solutions, and gave 36 kinds of micrococc ! IS of bacilli, and 3 of sarcine. Cleanli i ness of the nails is especially necessar II to all who ooAe Hear wound and fO
 those who live in neighborhQod wher
 an epidemic prevails.
 A REMARKABLE PREsERvATIvE.-A Be
 gian chemist has found that the gree
 tar left after extracting the oil from tn f white bark of the birch, will effectuall 1. preserve even the most delicate texture l. from decay. It yields neither acid nc
 alkaloid. Is remarkably fluid in alcohoh f solution. and when onse dried resists eve f the influence of alcohol.
 d A NEW IDRA-A recent contract prt a vides for street lighting in Paris on a nc a vel plan. Power is distributed by tn n compressed air system to great numbe :. of small motors, each of which supple s electricity for 3 small number of lamps.