The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1890-08-21
POPULAR SCIENCE.


The fastest time made over an electric
street railway is twenty-five miles an
hour.
1t is proposed to phonograph the songs
of birds and afterward write them down
in score.
About $500 species of wild bees are
known, of wasps 100, of which l1o ana
sixteen respectively live in Britain.
The electric spark has been photo
eraphed by means of special camera,
in which the sensitive plate rotated 25OO
times a minute.
A luminous buoy has been invented,
the light for which is produced by phos-
phuret of calcium, and is visible two and
a half miles away.
Electrically deposited copper is SO due
tile that it can be drawn down until 1t
resembles the finest hair, and this, too,
without annealing.
One of the most elaborate collections
of beetles in the worlds owned by?thc
Prince Regent of Bavaria, who is ansen-
thusiastic cntomologist.
1t is said that the shores of France, are
sinking so rapidly that in twenty cen
turies the French capital will have be.
come entirely submerged.
A new utilization of waste product
is the making of valuable paste-anief-
fectivc substitute for gum arabic-irom
the straw boilings that accumulate inthe
manufacture of paper.
Thunderstorms are said to 'bc more
numerous in low latitudes than in high,
and one reason given for their being less
destructive in England than irssomc Other
countries is the dampress of the climate.
The reason given why bisds do not
fall from their perch is because they can
not open the feet when the leg is bent.
Look at a hen walking and see it close
its toes as it lifts its foot and open them
as it touches the ground.
1t has never hitherto been found pos
sible to make drilling machine which
would drill square, hexagonal, oblong
and octagonal holes in metal, but such
tool has finally been devised, and its ap-
pearancc at on early day has been prom
ised.
We lose two pounds of water in the
twenty. four hours by perspiration, and
the more we perspirc the cooler we he
come. There are 27,000,000 pores on
the surface OF our bodies, which, if placed
in a line, would extend twenty-eight
miles in length.
The fact that the waves in the North
Sea differ in shape when caused by a
northeast wind under high pressure from
those caused by southwest wind with
low barometer, is considered as n proof
that the air in an anti-cyclone is q de-
scending current and the air in q cyclone
an ascending current.
American naval officers who have
adopted the cholera belt in the tropics
find it so beneficial that they often retain
it in all latitudes. 1t is simply a broad
band of flannel worn night and day the
year around tight about the waist, SO as
to protect the stomach from sudden
changes of the temperature. 1t is an eS-
cellent preventive of stomachic disord-
ers.
A distinctive feature of insects of the
grasshopper family is the manncr in which
they produce sound. The sharp, stridu-
lating noise with which the air resounds
all through the day and far into the mid
summer night is produced by the rubbing
of the stiff edges of the wing covers
against the basal joint of the hindmost
pair of legs; or, in some species, by rub
bing the edges of the wings against each
other.
DR.. Charles W. Dulles, prominent
physician of Philadelphia, holds to the
opinion that there is hope for consump-
tives and that medical science will be
able soon to control the disease. In a
recent paper on the subject he pointed
out that while in England half Il century
ago there were $1,000 deaths annually
among 10000 900 people, there are at
present in a population of 10000, 900
but IA, 900 deaths due to phthisis.
The temperature of snow at different
depths has been investigated by Signor
Christori. He finds that the variations
in temperature of the lowest layer, next
to the ground. are extremely small while
the uppermost layer has often consider
ably higher temperature. The tempera-
ture minimum of the air-layer next the
snow was always lower than that of the
uppermost snow-layer, while an air-layer
about twenty inches above the snow had
higher temperature than the layer one
two inches above the snow.