The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-05-07

MISCELLANY

NIOAILkANI
Globular lightning on Photographic
films was produced by Prof F. e. Nj
pher not long ago. The balls came
from the cathode of HoItz machine,
and travelled slowly over the plate
away from the source of the discharge,
leav: og trail Of metallic silver. He
has now obtained larger balls OH
boards of pine or other wood. These
balls are formed at the secondary
spark gap of an induction coil, direct
current being used with a Wehnelt in
terrupter, and they travel in either
direction, burning deep track in the
wood. The balls are started by touch
ing the wood with pointed terminals,
brought near together, the gap being
then heightened.
The novel form of incandescent
lamp devised by CHI. Petersen, OF
Christiana, is claimed to yield a
stronger light than the Nernst lamp,
with about the same saving of electric
current The light-radiating material
is small rod-instead of thread
that becomes conductor only when
heated, and around this is wound a
thin metal wire of good conductivity.
Rod and wire are connected With the
current conductors by equaliZing re-
sisters, which serve to heat the rod
and increase the current resistance.
The current is mostly taken up by
the rod
Recent products brought to the no
tice of French engineers by NJ. Leon
Appert include glass stone, glass
strengthened by enclosed metallic net
work, opaline glass, and grass perfor-
TO OTTO
stone of NJ. Garchey is produced by
cooling below fusion a glass rich In
lime, then relocating to 1000 degrees
centigrade, COMPRISING in hydraulic
presses, and annealing. The material
is adapted for paving bricks and TIL
ing and the outside of buildings. 1t
is unalterable, remarkably hard and
durable, and much less fragile than
ordinary glass.
A unique condition exists at North
wich, in Cheshire, England. The
pumping of brine from the salt beds
under the town causes frequent sub
sidences, and to remedy this a special
system of framing buildings has been
adopted SO that when a house settles
it can be raised on jackscrews and re-
stored to it's original position.
On the ice of Greenland Nordenskjold
collected three different kinds or dust
one consisting of diatoms, the sec
ond of siliceous and apparently
feldspathic sand, while the third (con-
tanning metallic iron, cobalt, nickel,
carbon, silicon and phospnorus) was
decided to be meteoric matter. The
spectra of dust and SCOT from various
sources have been lately studied by
Prof. w. N. Hartley and Mr.. Hugh
Ramage. In dust from the chimneys
of factories and dwellings they find
more lead, silver and copper than in
other varieties, with considerable nick
ell and manganese, and an especially
striking proportion of rubid1um, gal
lium, indium and thallium. Lime, mag
nesium and the alkali metals seem to
be the leading basic constituents OF
volcanic dust. SCOT varies much in the
proportions of the substances contain
ed, but is distinguished from other
dust of the heavens by it's manganese,
silver and lead. Dust from the clouds
has the greatest regularity of compost
ton, apparently consisting OF the same
proportions or iron, nickel, calcium,
copper potassium and sodium, with
much lead in Sleet, snow and hail.
Nickel in cloud dust is shown 10 be no
positive evidence of meteorIc origin,
but the magnetic character, appear
ance and composition of some dust that
fell November 16 and II, 1897, point
strongly to a source beyond the earth
Studying human food, Prof. F.
Hueppe finds that the anthropoid stock
from which man was evolved lived on
mixed diet of nuts, fruit, eggs, small
birds and insects. The struggle for ex-
istence compelled early man to become
carnivorous, being mammoth hunter
in glacial times; and at a later period
after the Introduction of fire and
cooking-over-p population in the East
forced upon him rice eating. Cooking
was necessary to vegetarianism, as
man has neither the teeth nor the di-
gestive apparatus of a herbivorous
animal A vegetarian diet, such as
that of Irish peasants, contains an ex
cess of carbohydrates over albumen,
and this can be safely borne only
when burned up by hard bodily labor
in the open air. AS a mixed feeder,
man attains his greatest longevity and
exceeds all other mammals IN strength
The sloNness of the old process of
tanning leather is due to the difficulty
with which tannin penetrates the hide
BY passing an electric current through
the constantly-circu bath, heavy
leather is now tanned as effectively In
six days as in twelve months by the
old method. g
When arsenic is being taken regu-
larly-either incidentally or accident
ally in drink or food-it appears that
enough is absorbed by the hair to aid
in the diagnosis of poisoning. A sim
pie test is to treat the hair with an
ammonia copper solution, and then to
examine it under a microscope-th
hair-pith containing a small quantity
of arsenic being unchanged under a
half-inch objective, but showing small
green granules of copper arsenite un-
der sixth-inch objective. One authori-
ty believes that this test will become
of Importance in criminal trials. The
amount of arsenic is often too small
to be determined, but in the case of
patient using the poison as a medi-
cine the hair was found to contain ar
senic in the proportion of 0.3 to 10000;
and in a patient who had been using
arsenical beer the hair showed as much
as 1 part Of arsenic in 10000.