The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-04

arated from their wives. 3s among widows
and 33S among widowers. but only "a among
unmarried women and 236 amorg pacnciois-
Attention TO a curious property of certain
plants has been called by an American
botanist. Mr.. e. J. Hill. 1t appears that
the largest part of the leaves, especially
the Younger ones. of Silphium luciEatum
and Siiphium terebinthinaceum turn them
selves in a north and south direction. Slr
Joseph Hooker. it is said. noticed the Pc
tell when the train changed its direction by
looking at these plants on the plain.
After much study in Italy DR.. A. Can
cant points out that while most animals
are disturbed during and after an earth
quake, it is only at some distance from the
epicenter that they show uneasiness before
the shock is p~erceptible TO man. 1t is ex-
planned that the tremorS move with greater
considerable space must be traversed before
they get several seconds ahead of the lat
ter.
The real value of potatoes depends upon
the starch contained. which may vary from
Is per cent. to about twice as much. While
the price does not vary accordingly it is of
advantage to cultivators to select seed rich
in starch, and a French inventor, NJ. A.
Allard, has devised an instrument called
the feculometer for enabling them to do
this. 1t depends upon the principle that
increase in the proportion of starch in
CiSdStS IL uelS1ly. 1T Is al KIM o. large
areometer, consisting of a lower receptacle
for a weight, a central float into which is
put a kilogram of very clean and very
dry potatoes, and a rod graduated for
density and corresponding richness in
starch. When plunged into a cylindrical
vessel of water about twenty inches deep,
the instrument promptly indicates the quail
ity of the potato by the depth to which the
rod sieks., The same apparatus may be
used for determining the density of other
farm products, such as beetS and grain, n
special scale being provided for each kind.
Criticising a common prescription for dys-
peptics and others, Medical Progress say
that a person subsisting upon a diet of
lean meat, while he may manifest greater
strength than upon more natural dietary,
and may be unconscious of any abnormal
conditions, is like a person in a powder
magazine-he is in constant danger of vital
catastrophe. The misunderstanding func-
tions of his liver and the poison-eliminating
capacity of his kidneys are taxed to their
utmost to keep the proportion of ptomaines
and leucomaines in the tissues down to a
poahr Whifn PERMITS i the peri n of sa fe+U
which nature has wisely made very large in
order to provide for emergencies. is reduced
to the narrowest possible limit. so that
anything which temporarily interferes with
the functions of the liver or the kidneys,
or which imposes additional work Upon
them, may be sufficient to obliterate the
safety margin and produce an attack of
grave or fatal disease. Invasion of the body
Dy HllCEODeS, SuCn dS
the typhoid bacillus, the bacillus of diph-
iberia, the pneumococcuS of FriedlanGer,
the shocks resulting from accident and
even the depression of a severe cold may be
sufficient to consume the meager ennergen-
cy capital, and the result is acute infiam-
nation of the kidneys or death under
chIoroform or from shock following an
operation under a~naesthesia.
The readiness with which tales of in
corrigible liars are accepted is a reminder
of how history is too often made, but re-
ports of scientific observations are more
severely scrutinized. Unfortunately, how
ever, even scientific men, accustomed as
they are to weigh evidence and reject i'm
probabilities, are sometimes deceived. Not
long ago an account was given of some
great potatoes, weighing something like
one hundred pounds each, and, as the de-
scription was illustrated with a cut of a
man staggering under a monster tuber
mounted upon his shoulder, it was ac-
knowledged that a new marvel of plant or
soil had been found until after a time it
leaked out that the picture. was a trick of
an amateur photographer who had invented
the story to fit his clever combination of
two Photographic exposures. The trite an
nouncement of the fall of a meteorite COW
ering two acres was a more clumsy inven-
ton, calculated to deceive only the very
credulous. One of the most successful
scientific canards seems to have been the
report of some Swiss experiments in which
rifle bullets and artillery Drojectiles were
alleged 10 nave Deen QenecteO TO a distance
of many yards by electrically charged wires
parallel to the firing range, this report
having been generally published and com
mented upon by scientific journals through
out the world. In exposing this repre-
hensible Joke NJ. C. E. Guillaume shows
that it really had a basis in scientific fact.
There is a very strong probability that the
so-called magnetic lines of force surround
ing the charged wires, together with a
feebler electrodynamic action, might at
tract or repel a projectile of iron or steel,
and even a doubtful possibility that they
might affect "a ball of any metal, but the
force exerted would be insignificant. The
improbability in this case, therefore,, was
simply an exaggeration of what was posi-
BILE. Another recent statement is that a
body estimated to be forty-five miles in
diameter and only 1000 miles away had
been seen to cross the suns disc, the
righteousness of this being apparent when
it is considered that such a body would
have an apparent diameter Of five times
that of the sun.