The suburban citizen., 1900-10-06
poPuLAR SCIENCE.


Professor Trowbrldge, Of Harvard,
has battery OF 10000 cells, which
can produce discharge having an
Intensity Of 100000 that can be
doubled by condensers; it gives spark
six and half feet long.
When the temperature Of the air is
thirty-two degrees sound travels 1890
feet second and one additional foot
second for each additional degree Of
temperature. Electricity in theory
travels at 2SS,0O0 miles second; over.
a wire where there is no resistance 1t
travels at the rate Of 1924 miles a
second.
The name Of flying foxes is given
to large, fruit-eating bats which were
studied by American naturalists dur
Ing the recent voyage Of the Fish Com
mission steamer AlbatrOss among the
South Pacific islands. On the island
Of Tongatabu was found a colony Of
5000 bats, inhabiting a clump of large
trees in a village. The native chief
carefully protects the bats, apparently
for some ,superstitious reason. On Ma
muka Island the bats were found in
the forests. They also exist in the
Fiji and Samoan groups.
Mr.. Claude Fuller, the English Gov
eminent entomologist in Natal, South
Africa, says that the Basutos eat 10.
Gusts, even making cakes Of them, as
he is informed In Pietermaritzburg
the natives, and some of the whites,
gather the flying termites that are at,
tracted by the electric lamps, and use
them both for fish bait and for food.
They are sometimes toasted and some.
times fried in a pan with butter. He
quotes from a friend the statement
that bugong moths are cooked by the
natives on hot ashes and eaten with
great gustO.
DR.. G. A. Davies, Of the Isle Of Man,
read an important paper on the sub
ject of consanguineOus marriages and
consumption at the recent meeting Of
the British Medical Association. Con.
sanguinity in marriage among the
Manx people had led he said, to much
illness in the offspring. There has
been little crossing of races among
them since the twelfth century, and
custom exists on the island to-day of
dscOuraging marriages between per.
sons living even in different parishes.
Hence there exists all over the island
a condition of close "inbreeding." AS
a consequence the general death rate
from consumption is 25.70 per 10000,
double that of England and Wales.
In Lonan, an isolated part, where all
of the inhabitants of the parish have
only three or four surnames, the rate.
is Att per 10000, while in Peel,
where many more strangers come, it
s only 1919.
Some of the suggestions in f. Gal
toms article on Analytical Portrait
ure," in which he described expert
ments Of photographing expression in.
dependently of the face on which 1t
appears, have been taken up by the
English Journal Photography, which
in a recent issue gives a number Of
from photographs made
by following Professor Cations direc.
lions. In one picture the sitter has a
normal expression and in the other he
is smiling. A transparency was made
from the normal negative This posi-
tive and it's negative when superim'
posed neutralized one another. When
the positive of the normal expression
was placed on the negative of the
smiling one, the two did not exactly
obliterate one another, but the parts
of the features common TO both dis
leaving only portions which
represented the smile; so that, as a
writer in Nature puts it, Lewis Car
rolls conceit Of the Cheshire cats grin
in "Allce in Wonderland" seems to
have at last been practically realized.
Barge once Tragedies.