The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-08-29

/
customary forms. Their vitality.
though apparently suspended for ages,
is in reality retained. The BIOLOGIST
| speaks wonderingly OF snails resusci-
| tated by warm water after a score Of
! years spent in museum drawer. while
| the botanist is amazed at the sprout-
| ing of seeds taken from the sarco-
/ phagi of the ancient Egyptians.
/ But how much more surprising is it 10
/ find that grains of sand torn from their
rocky beds ages ago and worn TO
| roundness by the waves of the ocean,
viii, under proper conditions resume
/ their original shapes of exquisite SYM
/ metry, with polished faces of geometri-
! cal regularity. Crystals of all kinds
| viii build themselves up and repair
| damages in this way if placed in solu-
! tions containing their own elements.
| Science has discovered that the first
! step in the formation of crystals is the
/ separation of minute globules from a
! solution. These globules arrange
! themselves with unerring mathemat-
zeal accuracy, building up skeletons OF
crystals, which are afterward by the
same mysterious process of nature
clothed and made complete. 1t is no
easy matter to construct a perfect
cube, each of whose six sides is an
equal square, yet nature turns out
such objects of perfect geometrical
symmetry in countless numbers.
II glassful of salt and water is al
lowed to evaporate slowly in a cool
place the salt viii be found to take
the form of cubes, each of which is
fundamentally exact in shape. Crys-
tails of salt always assume the shape Of
cubes, sometimes measuring three
inches in diameter. All of the more
important metals crystalline as cubes,
including gold, silver, copper and lead.
Some crystals take very remarkable
shapes. Those of iron sulphide, for ex-
ample, look like wild roses counter
feited in metal. The crystalline lime
formation known as Landscape
marble exhibits all sorts of wonderful
pictures when slice of it is cut and
polished. People are constantly send
ing to the academy supposed or fake
fossil animals and other oddities.
which are in reality mere accidental
forms carved by nature. \ pebble in
a stream may gather about itself
grains of sand until IN odd-shaped
lump is formed. A favorite shape
for such Jumps is that of turtle, with
four legs. head and tail. even the
lines OF the shell being sometimes dis
tinct. Similar concretions of carbonate
of iron and clay assume the appearance
OF petrifed peanuts. Break one and
you will always find inside a small
spiral Wrinkle shell, which has served
as the nucleus. An exceedingly rare
counterfeit of this kind, recently for
warded to the academy. was an alleged
fossil foot of a child about seven years
old, with little stocking on, the latter
showing signs of wear on the ball of
the foot and on the heel. 1t proved TO
be only an accidental concretion.
One eminent scientist has been anus
ing himself of late making imitation
spider webs out of quartz fibers. 1t is
well known that copper wire can be
drawn to fneness much less than the
thickness of a hair or to the diameter
of one-thousandth part o. an inch.
But glass may be spun finer than
copper, while even the finest spun
glass is not SO fine as silk fiber. The
latter, however, is coarse when com
pared with the threads that can be OBJ
tanned by melting quartz under a blow
pipe and pulling it out. Such threads
can be reduced to a thickness of the
one-millionth of an inch. When drawn
out to such an almost inconceivable
thickness they are wholly invisible ex-
cept under microscope of the highest
power. Yet they are stronger in pro-
portion to their thickness than the
best quality of bar steel. A curious in
vestigator estimated that enough
thread like this could be made from
single cubic inch of quartz to GO
around the world six hundred and fifty
eight times and that a single grain Of
sand, barely large enough to be visible
to the naked eve. would yield one mil.
lion miles of such thread But the &C,
curacy of such estimated is still doubt.
full.
One of the scientists of the academy
has proved by an interesting series OF
experiments that cObwebs can be made
of quartz that viii catch flies After
making number of such webs it wa.
found the quartz threads were too slip
perry to catch flies, having no gluten on
them like real cobwebs. This difficulty
was found to be easily remedied by
moistening a straw in castor oil and
gently strolIing the threads with II.
Then the webs capture flies fairly we'll
But as a cobweb is supposed to be inr
complete without a spider, it oc.
Cured to the experimental to see II
he could have real live arach.
mold take up his abode In a
readv-made quartz web. II was al
tempted to attract spider 10 the cen
ter of the webb by the buzzing Of Q
fy. but It was found rather difficult IS
make fly buzz 20 order. and salts
factory imitation was produced by per
hitting a steel tuning fork 70 vibrate
against the quartz fibers. This brought
the spider right ayay. and, after hastily
fastening the fly in his own peculiar
fashion. began a careful, II not aston .
ished, examination of the nev-fangled
web. IL was also found that the most .
beautiful imitation of soap bubbles /
could be blown from quartz which pre-
sented all the irridesceut hues % the T.
regulation article.
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MUSIC oF ANCIENT ISRAEL
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