The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-05-06
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

Antwerp archives show that an au-
tomobile, or mechanical carriage, was
given the city in 1919
1t has been thought that the electric
waves used in wireless telegraphy
travel through earth and rock, as well
as air, and one expert has even de-
clared that they are chiefly propagated
through the earth. NJ. Lagrange has
lately shown, however. that they can
not affect receiver buried eighteen
inches deep.
The average dur .tion of life is esti-
mated to have been increased in the
last half century at least three years
in men and three and a half years in
women. DR.. Parker, of London, finds
that smallpox has been reduced 95 per
cent; deaths from fevers in general,
81 per cent; deaths from diptheria, SO
per cent, and deaths from phthisis, 46
per cent. Antiseptic surgery has less
ened the mortality from operations 20
per cent.
A new instrument for detecting and
studying distant thunder storms, the
consists essentially
of self-decohering decoherer, which
is placed in circuit with dry cell
and telephone receiver. The deco
herer is formed of arc carbon, dried
and granulated, and sealed hermetic-
ally in glass tube attached to the
telephone magnet, so as to lie hori-
zontally when the telephone is put to
the ear.
When vaseline is injected into liv-
ing animal tissues, it is una,erabIe
and does not irritate. The remarkable
suggestion is therefore made by DR..
Gernusy, of Vienna, that it be used
for raising depressed scars or hattened
features, or filling out the place of
bones partly removed, and for a va
riety of similar purposes. White ster-
ilized vaseline, composed of solid and
liquid paraffine and melting at 40 de-
grees Fahrenheit, is the material rec
commended.
The new Dead Sea discovered by Dr.
Sven Hedin in Thibet seems entitled
to rank among the geographical won
ders of the world. 1t is described as
enormous in extent, but so shallow
that to navigate, one must wade half
mile to reach the boat, and must
drag the boat half mile more before
it can be fioated with a load. But the
most remarkable characteristic is the
almost incredible amount of salt con-
tanned. The bottom is an unbroken
crust of salt, and the boat and oars
are as white as chalk, even the dress
of the rowers soon becoming whitened,
while drops of the water sprinkled on
a dry surface, leave globules like can
die drippingS.
The gibe that candy-eating is as harm
ful as wine-drinking has not been justi-
fled in an investigation by M. Chauveau
A dog was fed on meat and sugar for
fifty-four days, and he gained one-fif-
teenth in weight notwithstanding daily
run of thirty-four miles. When one-third
Of the sugar was replaced with alcohol
his energy was SO reduced that urging
was needed to make him run, although
he lost but an ounce or two in weight
On alternating the rations, giving the
sugar and sugar with alcohol each one
week, the corresponding gain and loss of
energy were made very apparent.
In drowning, strangulation, gas
suffocation and the like, the body Is
in healthy condition, death result
ing from stoppage of respiration and
heart action. The actual restoration
of life by renewing breathing and the
circulation of the blood, is now known
to be possible. This has been dem
onstrated in Europe by a late series
OF 100 experiments on dogs, in which
sixteen out Of twenty-one animals that
had been killed by chlorofotm were re-
stored to life. The process consists in
forcing air through tube into the
lungs at the usual rate of breathing,
and in opening the chest and squeezing
the heart in imitation of the natural
contractions. A Danish physician re-
ports having tried the method in the
case of a man that had died under the
influence of chloroform. The heart
was reached through an opening cut
in the chest wall, and was squeezed
rythmically for half an hour, air be-
ing at the same time forced into the
lungs; and as a result respiration was
set up, and only an occasional COM
preston was needed to keep the heart
going. Life continued several hours,
when the breathing suddenly ceased
and the patient was dead again.
The glaciers of the Alps have been
shrinking for about forty years, and
of fifty-seven observed in 1897, there
were fifty that were still decreasing.
1t is probable that period of increase
is now beginning. The oscillations are
exceedingly variable in the different
glaciers, and it is found that an I'M
Outstanding of the causes affecting
glacial advance and retreat, can only
be had by a separate study of each
locality. While it is probable that the
changes are connected with both win
ter snowfall and summer temperature,
the former affects chiefly the upper
end Of the ice river and may not have
a perceptible influence on the lower
end for a number of years. The his
tory Of the Inter Grindehvald glacier,
whose oscillations have been conspicu-