Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1893-11-03
WHAT THERE is In DUST.
1T CONTAINS STARCH GRAINS
AND OTHER SUBSTANCES.
Difference Between the Dust of
Cities and of the Country-Ex-
amining u Pinch of Dust.

it. 1t is the bother of my
life.
So says the housewife. 1t never oc-
ours to her to wonder what is this
ver-accumulating dust of which she
complains Yet there are ever so
many strange things to be told about
it.
OF all the materials of which dust is
composed the most interesting is
starch. In every pinch of dust there
is more or less of this ingredient in
the shape of oval and spherical grains.
The dust found in cofiins with old
Egyptian mummies contains starch
grains just like those which fly about
in the air to-day.
A scientist with an inquiring mind
once took the trouble to examine un-
der microscope specimens of dust
which had penetrated the skulls of an
imals embalmed i'll the days of tho
Pharaohs. The samples revealed the
same kind of grains of starch. Such
grains are always in everybody's
clothes and on the hands Press your
moistened finger upon clean piece of
glass, and on looking at the latter with
a microscope you vii! discover several
starch grains Wash your hands
dozen times and every repetition of
the experiment will produce the same
result.
Where does all all this starch come
from? The answer is I: From the food
of mankind. Wheat, barley, rice, po-
tatoes, etc, are largely composed of
starch. Little grains of it are widely
scattered by the winds, and being very
light are held III suspension.
For the reason above mentioned
much more starch is to be found in tho
dust of cities than in that of the coun-
try, where population is comparatively
sparse. Thus it may be said that in
every town cloud of starch always
hangs in the cir. However, the dust
that blows through the streets, which
settles upon furniture and makes work
for the housewife, contains ever so
many other things besides starch.
Take n small pinch of it at random and
examine it at leisure. Perchance you
will discover among it n fiber of wood,
n scale of human epidermis, frag-
ment of the hair of dog, piece of
an insects claw, the shell of an ami
malcule and the spore of plant await
ing proper resting place, with the
necessary dampness to reproduce its
species. sf
These are all organic substances,
animal or vegetable. Dust contains
much inorganic matter, particularly
- al %
of their size and shape such particles
were for n long time mistaken for eggs
of some kind, but this notion was fin
ally exploded by making chemical
analyses of the alleged eggs. The
history of single one of these frag-
ments would be most interesting to
know. Ever so long ago perhaps it
was part of rock. The waves wore it
away from the parent stone and
the shore After II while the wind
caught it and flung it upon the upland.
Rain took it from the ground and hur-
ried it along to river. The river car
ried it to the sea. From the sea water
il was taken by an oyster to build the
latter's shell. The mollusk WAS caught
and eaten, and the shell, being thrown
away, was trampled upon, powdered
and dispersed by the, breezes Thus
the particle whose story. is here re-
lated was set ahoat in the atmosphere,
to fall mt length upon your library
table and to afford subject for spec
ulation beneath your microscope.
As you walk down the street ON one
of the breezy autumn DAYS cloud
of dust is blown in your face, almost
sitting you, Ii is mixture consist
ing largely of small fragments of sand
But ii You will take IL pinch of il home
and subject II to examination, YOU
will find that il contains an extraor-
dinNry variety of other things, such as
the broken tibers of plants, pollen,
| fine hairs, tibers OF clothing and other
fabrics, PARTICLES uf lime and SCOT,
ashes and clusters of different kinds of
micro. organisms.
When n ray of sunlight streams into
darkened room II reveals the timer
dust particles which always ill the air,
though ordinarily invisible to the eve.
Doctor Prudon, who has made study
of this subject, says that the PARTICLES
in question consist mostly of fragments
of vegetable and animal tihers, such
as cotton aud wool, aud of an enor-
nous variety of micro organisms,
singly or ia masses, such as bacteria
aad the spores of mold plants. Such
are the "motes ia the sunbeam, re
specting which so many poetic ideas
have been expressed Not few Of
them are germs capable II producing
diseases ol various sorts II they happen
"A nuI I,Isrn..f IA Al. h,.t,es.t, a,..t -.