The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-12-06
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

Mr.. w. L. Dallas reports that The
observations of twenty-five years. made
in the Bay of Bengal by the Indian gov
eminent meteorologists, have shown
that the average temperature rises
during years that sun spots are numer
Gus, and sinks when they are few
When the number of sun spots eX'
ceeded the average, the barometric
pressure was less than its average
Mr.. NJ. S. Bembrey finds by expert
ment that increase of temperature
around u warm blooded animal lessons
its output of carbon dioXide to a re-
markable degree, and diminution OF
temperature increases it. The reverse
is true of cold-blooded animals Up to
the twenty-frst day developing chick
reacts like a cold-blOoded animal, and
after that like a warm blooded.
According to d French statistician,
there were in 1898 $1,000 breweries in
the world. Germany heads the list
with 6,24O, and England comes next
with PISA breweries. The United
States is third with $500 breweries,
Austria with 1,942 breweries. Belgium
has LEO breweries and France 1,04f.
The annual allowance of beer per head
of population in Bavaria is 221 literS;
in England, 143; in the United States,
81; in Sweden, II, and in Russia 5.
AT the recent meeting of the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement
of Science in Brooklyn, Mr.. A. Springer
entertained the chemists and physicists
of the section with the music of a VIC
lin made of aluminium instead of wood.
In the paper he read, it was asserted
that such Instruments had the advant-
age of wooden ones in that they would
neither warp nor crack, and that they
lacked the uncertainty and lack of in
dividuality common to the latter.
"A writer in The English Mechanic
states that he wrecked the web of the
geometrical or garden spider (Epeira)
in sitting down, when she in a moment
devoured the whole of the wreckage,
taking great pains to leave not a
wrack behind save the one strand which
formed her only path during the feast, "
and asks if this proceeding is rule or
exception in spider life. His query is
answered by another correspondent
who says that it is a common practice
with spiders to eat up their waste web.
The French Academy of Medicine
has taken up the question of the health
fulness of bicycling, and at recent
meeting decided to investigate the sub
ject thoroughly. Besides a number of
sudden deaths from heart disease as
cribed to the practice, cases were re-
ported of tuberculosis being reawak-
ened by cycling and of vertebral dis
ease. The academy resolved unani-
mously that till the results of the in
quiry are known, the use of the
bicyclette Safety should be permitted
only after a careful medical eXamina-
ton of the individual"
From February to August of this
year 800 cases of true diphtheria were
treated in the children's hospital in
Paris by DR.. Roux's antitoXin method.
OF these rs died, or 26 per cent, which
must be contrasted with the mortality
of so per cent. common before the
treatment was used OF 1870 cases of
diphtheria without other complications
9 died, of whom were so ill when adj
mitted to the hospital that the remedy
had not time to act. In the more severe
cases. where the larynX was affected,
"a per cent of those who were treated
with antitoXin died, and 81 per cent.
died of those who were not so treated