The Indianapolis journal., 1898-06-19


empt from liability to removal to plague
camp If any member is attacked by the dts
case.
A local magnetic pole-a point where a
dipping needle stands vertical--is reported
by Professor Leist to exist at Kotchetovka
in the Russian province of Kursk 1t is
necessary to move twenty yards from this
degree. At the point of this interesting
anomaly the ordinary compass needle
swings freely. stopping indifferently in any
direction.
The spring of carbonic acid in Sondra
supposed to be result of ancient volcanic
action in the region of the Thuringian for
est, seems to be inexhaustible, pressure
of seventeen atmospheres at the mouth hav-
ing continued without diminution The
yield is about LOCO cubic yards of gas per
hour. Over ten tons Of liquefed carbonic
acid per day is produced from this supply
the gas being kept confined as it issues
from the earth, and used under pressure
for power for the liquefying machinery and
for lighting plant.
So-called wireless telegraphy, it is pointed
out, cannot become practicable for long dis
tances until the energy now scattered pro-
fusely in all directions can be concentrated
in one narrow path Eventually, though
probably not at once. it may become pos
sible to focus the electromagnetic waves,
like the rays of a search light, upon a point
a great distance away. Under present con.
ditionS 1t Is calculated that at a distance OF
one mile the fraction of the total energy
received on one square foot is less than
1850, 600 of the total energy radiated.
French soldiers have been found by M
Vincent to be on the average a hundred
times more subject to typhoid fever than
native Algerian soldiers. This discovery
becomes more surprising when it is con-
sidered that the disease is usually
serious when it attacks the Arabs
1t is thought that the comparative exemp-
ton of the Arab does not depend on pre-
vious attack or on a slow acclimatization
consequent on residence in towns, but on
natural immunity comparable. to- the i'm
munity of negroes against yellow fever or
of Algerian sheep against anthrax
A rainfall of 31.76 inches in twenty-four
hours is reported to have occurred last De-
cember a Nedunkeni, in the northern prov
ince of Ceylon, where the total fall for 1897
was 121.S5 inches, although the average
yearly rain is but 6470 Other great rain
falls on record are 31.17 inches in twenty
two hours, at Joyeuse, France; 80 inches in
twenty-six hours at Genoa; SO inches III
twenty-siX hours at Gibraltar; "a inches in
one night near Bombay, and 80 inches on
each of five successive days on the khasla
hills, India The greatest annual fall is 500
inches the record of the khaSia hills.
Cast iron pipes are given extra strength
by winding with wire, and the wire-wound
pipes can be made of unusual lightness.
This is the idea of French iron master,
M. Jacquemart, who makes the castings
with projecting rings or bands to hold the
wire in place. Annealed steel wire is used,
and this is wound on the pipe in lathe, the
whole being then painted or dipped in as
phalt A pipe six and one-half feet in di-
ameter cast in lengths of thirteen feet, has
been satisfactorily tested, the result show
ing the wired pipe to be capable of with
standing pressures much beyond those for
which the unstrengthened cast iron is safe.
The smoking of tea cigarettes is pro-
nounced one of the most harmful and dam
gerous of our nd-of-the-century fads. The
cigarettes are made from green tea of un-
broken leaf and little dust, this being made
pliable by moistening before being stuffed
into the paper cylinders. and the. finished
before use. The wise beginner, who uses
only one cigarette on his first trial, Will
never repeat the experiment. He expert
ences a thickening of the head and a desire
to sit down, but if the smoke is continued
feeling of intense eXhilaration follows the
first effects and lasts until the. last cigar
cite is finished An observer of this habit
declares that the agony of the opium flend
is a shadow to that of the nauseated victim
of the tea cigarette. Food cannot be looked
at for hours, yet a cup of tea is the first
step toward relief, and is followed within
an hour by craving for a cigarette.
The latest apparatus for teiegraphing
images to distance is the idea of M Dus-
saud, the inventor of the micfophorograph
The image is received in a camera, passed
through a rotating shutter pierced with
small openings arranged in a spiral and falls
upon a solenium plate through which is
passed an electric current traversing the
primary circuit of an induction coil. The
apertures of the shutter bring the light of
successive parts of the image to the selen-
ium, setting up currents in the secondary
circuit of the coil that vary in strength
with the intensity of light, according to a
well known law. The varying currents pass
to the receiving instrument, where a very
sensitive telephone diaphragm is displaced
more or less in front of a fixed plate, more
or less weakening beam of light that
passes a shutter exactly like that of the
transmitter and moved in unison with it.
and is thrown upon screen by system of
lenses. The light reaching the screen has
the same intensity as the corresponding
part of the image. The result is, theoreu-
cally, at least, that when both shutters are
rotated over the entire image in a tenth of
a second the time visual impressions per-
sist the entire image is seen on the screen.