The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1891-03-28
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

1t is believed in Florida that rice
culture is to become profitable pursui.
In that country.
They are now raising English wal.
nuts out in California, and single trees
yield $50 worth of nuts. which is far
better than can be done in England.
The wholesale price of whalebone
Is now $4,000 a ton. A project is ON
loot to organize whaling expeditions
from Australia to the Antarctic seas.
where 1t is believed plenty of whales
are to be found. 1t is an almost un-
touched whaling ground.
American
From an official document Just pub
Iished Italy is the greatest consumer in
Europe OF English Goals. The follow
ing is the proportion of Goals provided
yearly for the principal powers; Italy,
1,465,690 tons; France, 757,so9 tons;
Germany, 902, 957 tons; Russia, ,9S7
tons; Spain, 724,972 tons.
M. Prouho has been studying the
sense of smell in star-fishes, and con-
cludes that these animals, when excited
by the presenceof bait are guided by
sensations perceived by the ends of their
arms. The sense of smell is not diffuse
in star-fishes, but is localized in the
suckers, useless for locomotion, situated
at the back of the eye-plate.
Ingenious machines for the various
operations of manufacturing matches
have been in use in Scandinavia for
some time, and more are expected. Ma
chimes for packing the matches have
recently been introduced; one of these,
the invention of two young Norwegian
engineers, having capacity of Loco
boxes per minute.
-Thumping or knocking in piece of
machinery is often hard to locate, and
the following has been suggested as
means of discovering the difficulty, A
rubber tube about a yard long is used,
one end of which is placed in the ear,
and the other end passed over the sus-
pected spots. The vibrations from all
other parts than the one covered being
excluded, it is said to be an easy matter
to find the jarring noise.
DIR. Mcpherson states that it has
been conclusively proven that distilled
water is of blue color. A demonstrp-
ton of the fact may be had by lowering
into water metal tube, open at the
top and closed at the bottom, with
clear glass plate, close to white object
twenty feet below the surface. Looked
at through the tube this object has a
beautiful blue color, whereas it would
appear yellow if its color were due to
light reflected by suspended particles in
the water.
1t is only during the last few de-
cades of this age that we have become
accurately acquainted with the nature
and works of those minute living forms
which we now designate as micro
organisms, microbes, germs or bacteria.
For much of this knowledge, and more
especially for the ground work of it, we
are indebted to the indefatigable energy
and mastery genius of Louis Pasteur,
whose name is SO familiar in every cor
ner of the globe where civilization has
made itself felt.
1t is generally taught that the do
nestle cat was first dqpesticated in
Egypt, the Greeks and Romans not pos
sessing it, and that the cat was not
known to have lived in Italy earlier
than about nine centuries before the
Crusades. Rolleston claimed that the
4 mestic cat of the Greeks and Romans
was a marten. Virchow, having exam
ined the mummies of Egyptian cats, 7
find that they had nothing in common
with our household pet, and that the
Egyptian cat was simply tame Great
ure, or domesticated savage, like the
monkey or gaze1le.-N. Y. Independent.
Prof. F. w. Putnam, the well-known
permanent secretary of the American
Association, recently made an interest
ing discovery which furnishes fresh evil
dence in support of the theory that man
in America was contemporaneous with
the mammoth. In communication to
the Boston Society of Natural History,
Prof. Putnam describes shell found by
him in the State of Delaware Upon q
portion of this shell is scratched the
rude outline of what without doubt rep
a mammoth. The shell was
found under peat, and near by were
human bones, charcoal, bones of ami
mails and stone implements Philadel.
phia American.