The Coconino sun., 1891-05-23
POPULAR SCIENCE CHAT.
A BUDGET OF ENTERTAINING
 TALK FOR ALL.
The Brazilian Government Wants to Ex.
 terminate tho yampires-Pro- posed Protective Armor- -f Queer Privileges.

| lHe DruHllltLn government has re- peatedly offered liberal reward for a plan resulting in an abatement of the
 vampire plague which in the provinces of Bahia and Matto Crosse makes
 stoclS-raising almost impossible. As | many as twenty of the winged blood | suckers attack a cowin a single night,
 in spite of all precautions, says Dr. Felix Oswald, in the Philadelphia Times. but local scientist now pro- poses to abate the nuisance by burning down the forests en masse, and thus | deprive the little ghouls of their hid | ing places in the interior of hollow
 trees. In dry summers the project | would no doubt be feasible, and under the. impulse of favorable gale the
 conflagration could even be relied upon
 to pass the barriers of the broad rivers; but there is a serious risk that the sum-
 mers of the expurgated districts would
 soon get dry to degree not contem- plated in the programme of the pro- Jector. The vast plains of east | ern South America are even l now liable to protracted droughts, and
 there is, indeed, an ugly analogy be- tween the low-lands of Brazil and the basin of the Sahara desert, which is known to have extended it's area con- siderably within the last few hundred | years, and may once have been region | of evergreen forest like the Empire of Morocco, where continuous woods once Gt oh n1 hn Co h. | shore-sands of the Atlantic, constitu- ting the best timber province of the Roman Empire, though arboreal vege- tation is now almost as scarce as on ] the volcanic cinderfelds of the moon.
 It would, indeed, be mistake to SUD- pose that the neighborhood of the
 ocean constitutes anything like guar
 antee for the continued productiveness of the Brazilian coastlands. Twice | since the beginning of the present century those plains were visited by | droughts that caused more distress
 than our civil war, and the wholesale destruction of woodlands would soon
 make such droughts a chronic afllic- tion.
 r PROTECTIVE ARMOR.
 Professor T. D. Garnier, of Mar seilles, publishes the result of series of interesting experiments with pro- posed substitutes for the metal mail coats of the middle ages. Pressed cot ton, annealed copper chains, fabrics of
 half-tanned leather, all proved a re-
 markable resisting powor but were surpassed by network of heavy silk
 cords plaited in double layers and
 backed by rings composed of an alloy
 of aluminium and copper. The Ger
 man repeating rifles can be fired eight times minute, and in the hands of a trained brigade would keep up con- tinuOus hail-storm of bullets, but those bullets are so small that their pcne- trativo force could be counteracted
 easily enough to justify the reintro-
 ductiou of protective armor, at le ast for cavalry and artillery.
 QUEER PRIVILEGES.
 A correspondent of the Courier Francais defends the French privilege of illiteracy on the strange ground
 that compulsory education makes the
 mass of the people hate literature. In Germany, he says, where every farm
 CTS and cooper's boy is dragged to the school house, only the upper classes
 read, while working people detest the very sight of book, and associate education with the idea of government despotism. In the United States, on the other hand, where attendance at school is largely optional, almost wholly so in the South, every farmer who can possibly spare a dime Il week suhscribes for newspaper, and in spite of free G. O.; non-compulsory) schools general intelligence has reach ed far higher level in Franco than in Germany or Austria.
 EXTENSIVE PETS. When the first pioneers settled in Upper California they used to vaunt the geological attractions of the far west, especially of the blue-gray squir- rel that enliven the hillsides with their restless gambols and climb run and dig with equal dexterity. At present they would probably pay n liberal premium to get rid of those expensive pets. A year ago colony of squirrels flooded Q IS, 000-ac tract of valley lands bysundermining the Colusa levees and recently several fine wheat farms in Stanislaus and Tehama counties were sold at great sacrifice after the same rodents had ruined a succession of promising har- vests.
 A FAIR COMPROMISE.
 The natives of Montenegro are the most inveterate betters on earth. They stake their pennies on cock-fght or the issue of an election with equal readiness. They lay wagers on duels, on the length of a drought or of ser mon, and even bet on the verdict of a circuit court but are required to state their theories in an uudertone, lest too audible comments. might bias the de- cision of the judges.
 WAR RELICS.
 A farmer of Hancock county, Maine, boasts the possession of an iron camp kettle that has been in the family sew oral hundred years and is considered quite a local curiosity for having done service i,t tho Miles Standish campaign against gho Peuobscot Indians. For Indian campaign purposes the portable distillerics of that time proved, how ever, even more effective.