The Bossier banner., 1893-11-30
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

-Ihe anableb, a fish that inhabits
the rivers of Guiana and Surinam, has
two pupils to each eye, an upper and
lower one. When the fish is swim
ming it keeps this upper optic, which
protrudes above the head, out of the
water.
The discharge of river is the vol
ume of water it pours into the sea with
in given time, usually expressed as SC
many feet per second. 1t is estimated
by finding the breadth, the average
depth and the average rate of a river
at its mouth, and multiplying.
"A plan has been formed to irrigate
portion of Southern California, which
is said to be the largest tract of land
in one body to be found in the state.
This will be accomplished by damming
river, and so making a lake nine
miles long, three miles wide and one
hundred and thirty feet deep.
"A member of the Royal Meteoro-
logical society has experimental on
the size of rain drops, which vary from
speck so small as to be almyst invisi-
BILE up to a diameter of two inches
Drops of the same size do not always
contain the same amount of water.
Some of the largest drops are hollow.
The powerful instrument known as
the Bruce" telescope, which has been
building for some time past at Cam
bridgeport, Mass, and is now almost
completed, is destined for Areqnipa
Peru, for the observatory maintained
at that place, under the charge of Prof.
Pickering, by Harvard university.
| Whether water wheel runs faster
at night than in the day is a problem
over which scientific readers of Ger
man paper have been puzzling. The
leading opinion is that the wheel does
run faster at night for the reason that
the water is then cooler and somewhat
more dense than when warmed by the
sun.
-Engish-speaking countries have,
four different miles, the ordinary mile
of $3.50 feet, and the geographical or
nautical mile of 6,0s5 feet, making
difference of about one-seventh be-
tween the two. Then there is the
Scotch mile of 5,92S feet, and the Irish
mile of 6, 720 feet. In fact, almost every
country has its own standard mile.
According to the census figures, the
silk manufacturing industry in this
country has grown wonderfully in the
past ten years. In 1890 goods to the
value of 500, 900, 900 were turned out, as
against s34, 800 600 in 1880. The number
Of hands employed here also increased
from about $1,000 to $1,000, and the
number of spindles have expanded from
sos, 1877 to 1,254,T9s.
"A recent writer asks whether ants
talk, and relates that he saw drove
of small black ants moving apparently
to new quarters. Every time two met
they put their heads together as though
they were chatting. To investigate
the matter he killed one, and the eye
witnesses of the murder hastened away
and laid their heads together with
every ant they met. The latter imme-
diately turned back and fed.
-Metallurgy is tending to become
one of the most efficient producers of
manures in the world. Twenty years
ago 90, 900 tons of phosphoric acid were
| hS pOlSOA W G,VoO,OoV GOlIo VI SdoO
iron which England produced, while
English ships were ransacking the
most distant regions of the globe for
phosphoric acid for agriculture. The
basic process has been the end of this
anomaly. Apparatus attached to the
furnaces in Scotland for the recovery
of the ammonia out of the furnace
gases have furnished a new and inn
portant source of sulphate of ammonia
for agriculture.
The results of six months observa-
tions of Mars have led an astronomer
at the Lick observatory to the conclu-
sion-contrary to the generally-re-
ceived views-that the dark portions
of the disk represent land and the
light portions water. This is supported
by observations of San Francisco bay
from Mount Hamilton, in which the
bay appears brighter than the neigh
boring valley and mountains at the
same distance. On this hypothesis the
canals would correspond to ridges OF
mountains almost wholly immersed in
water, while their doubling may rep
resent parallel ridges of which our own
earth furnishes examples.