The Opelousas courier., 1892-10-01
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

4 child three years old IS half the
height it will ever reach.
A man obtains his maximum height at
forty years of age, a woman at fifty years.
y The medusa is a fish SO fragile that
when washed on the beach it melts and
disappears.
A tropical moth, called the atlas moth,
has a wing spread of one foot. It is gray
IN color and flies by night.
(, An electrical brush has been invented
to kill grass and weeds along the track.
1t destroys every blade of grass it
touches.
Carbon is so good a conductor of cleo
tricity that, in the form Of coke, it is
used to make an earth connection for
lightning rods.
Experiments toward rust prevention
are being made in all the Australian col
onies, and a conference was held in
Adelaide, in March, to report results.
There are most beautiful butterflies in
the Malay archipelago, of an exquisite
blue and other iridescent hues, which
measure eight inches from wing tip TO
wing tip.
The shorn" Of the rhinoceros is
simply a hypersrophied bunch of hair,
the horns of lizards and Of cattle are
morphologically hypertrepbied portions
of the skin.
When ripe. the banana consists Of
seventy-four per e of water, twenty
per cent. of sugar, two per cent. of
gluten, and the remainder Of mineral
matter and woody fiber.
Every portion of soapstone lost in cut
ting is utilized in other ways. Il gives
the dull color to rubber goods, is used
in paper to gain weight, and is an ex.
paints.
A remarkable case is that of a man
who was stabbed in the heart. 5IThat or
gan was punetured, but yet he lived and
would have recovered had he not be-
come intoxicated before the wound en-
tirely healed.
Experiments in Germany show that
peat is a good material in which to store
potatoes, turnips, onions and other SINH
lar vegetables. Potatoes, after eight
months, were found in perfect condition
without ever having terminated.
Several of the higher apes share with
man the Evolutionary habit of bIushing.
Indeed, they seem to possess it to a
higher degree then we do, for the blush
of an ape extends ever a larger portion
of thu body than that of q human being,
Itfy claimed by scientists that all the
lime in the world has, at some time,
been a portion Of some animal. The
same atom of lime has some time, no
DOUBT, been a portion of many different
animals, and possibly of human bsings
also.
Heligoland is to be made a harbor of
refuge for fishing vessels, and is being
fortified heavily. The island Is to be a
scientific station, the German Govern
ment having erected laboratories there
for the study of marine zoology, and
especially of the economic history of
food fishes.
The perpendicularity of a monument
is, although few may be aware of it,
visibly affected by the rays of the sun.
On every sunny day a tall monument
has q regular swing, leaning away from
the stn. This phenomenon is due to
the greater expansion of the side on
which the rays of the sun fall.
In Germany, barrels and tubs are now
being made in a single piece by a new
system of cutting logs into boards and
venee,s. The log is steamed and
softened, then placed in a machine and
rotated against a knife which shaves off
a continuous veneer, or board, till the
log is consumed. In making barrels, a
strip is notched in each edge, and then
it can be rolled into cylindrical form,
ready for hoops and heads.