The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-01-04
C0Trsspond enes Baltimore County linton.
SCIENTIFIC ISCELLANY.

~ 3O .l..l..I..l.ll 2olz9oO 81. .l..l..
Oorrssp0ndencs Baltimore County Unson
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
x-Rays to Date-Modern Register
ing-Rat-Fighting by Infection-Possi-
BILE Unknown Senses-Near Absolute
Zero - Told by the Ears-A Moon Pc
Rod in Climate
The present state of photography has been out
lined by DIR. s. Henry Smith, an English expert.
After making thousands of photographs, or
autographs, he has discarded all other apparatus
in favor of 14-inch-spark Ruhmkerff COIL a
lithanode accumulation, and homemade Web
melt break, using the mechanical break worked
from the accumulation for soft tissues, the Web
melt direct from the mains through resistance
for the bones and thick parts. He insists, con-
trary to a recent London hospital opinion, that
all pictures should be true photographs, timed
to show in detail the bone ulcer other feature
to be studied. 1t is now possible to locate all
foreign bodies, to show fractures and disloca-
tions, and to prove in some cases stone in the
bladder or kidneys, but negative result does
not always prove the absence of stone. Aneu-
rism of the heart and disease of the lungs may
be shown occasionally, though not infalliably.
Curative effects have been produced in several
cases of stiff joints, with exposures of thirty
seconds at intervals of three days, and in this
promising field of usefulness there seems to be
much to learn. Burns and harm to patients
generally result from ignorance of the operator.
s+s
The automatic train recorder of the Brooklyn
Rapid Transit Company consists of ruled
record paper, divided into five minute spaces,
and revolved by clockwork. In front of the
paper is a series of needles, each operated by an
electromagnetic and connected with division of
the road. AS a train passes a suitably arranged
insulated rail in any DIVISION the corresponding
electromagnet is energized, and a dot is made
on the paper
Lisbon's plague of rats-which resisted cats,
traps and poison-seems to have succombed to an
infectious disease, harmless to man, which has
spread among the rodents with great rapidity
since the first incubation Of few of them.
This plan of determination is to be tried on
ships.
What other creatures feel and know still offers
wide field for investigation. Lord Avebury,
unlike Descartes and other great authorities, is
forced to conclude that animals possess some
glimmers of reason, and that their minds differ
from ours more in degree than in quality, while
he has demonstrated that they may have senses
quite unknown to US. He has shown by tests
that they hear higher notes than are audible, to
us and see ultraviolet rays that do not affect
our eyes. Our organs enable us to perceive vi
brations in the atmosphere from about 30 to a.
600 per second, which give us the impression of
sound, and beyond 100 millions of millions per
second, which give the impression of light.
The intermediate vibrations, to which we are
tnsensible, may give to responsible organs sew
eral senses as different from ours as sound is
from sight. To our animal friends they may
transform our familiar world into a very diff
ferent place, full of music we cannot hear, of
colors we cannot see and of sounds we cannot
conceive.
Summing up1the epoch-making work of the
London Royal Institution in connection with
low temperatures, Miss Agnes NJ. Clarke re-
minds us that the researches.ySsich in 1898 were
being devoted by Profs. E-far and Fleming to
the resstances of materials in the greatest at
tainable cold, were continued through gift in
1895 of 100000 from an American, Mr.. Thomas
G. Hcdgkins, and two later donations from the
Goldsmiths' Company. The liquefaction of by
dSpgen in 1898 was the eliminating point. Liquid
pdrogen proved to be colorless, only four
teenth as heavy as water, with boiling point of
$3.50 c., and it was soon solidified and found
to have freezing point about 15oC. above abso-
lutte zero. Helium, the new gas, has taken the
place of hydrogen as the last of the so-called
permanent cases. This has stood unchanged
temperature of 2920C., but it is hoped soon to
cool it to within sec. of absolute zero. An OUT
come of these investigations has been the dis
covery that the air contains part of hydrogen
in 5000, together with four previously unsus-
pected gases.
A simple decoction of hemp was used in China
0Oyears ago as an an@sthetc in surgical opera
tions, according to a newly discovered Chinese
manuscript in Paris library
ST
Just now the external ear is receiving the at
tention as an alleged index of human capacity
and tendencies that has been given in turn TO
the bumps of the head, the lines of the hand,
and so on. DR.. Arthur Keith, who has been in
vestigating the subject from a scientific stand
point, divides ears into two strongly contrasted
types, marking the opposite poles of develop
ment. In one, which he calls the orang type,
the ear is small and shell-liKe, with narrowed
descending helix and in-rolled margin; in the
other, or chimpanzee-type, the ear is large and
broad, and the margin is not in-rolled. Though
the orang-type may seem to justify the impress
sion that the human ear is decaying structure,
the central-or active-part is more highly de-
veloped than ever the truth probably being
that man is evolving new type of ear. A strik-
ing popularity of some ears-noted by Darwin
lis the remnant of tip pointing backward
from the top, and this seems to be reversion to
an ancestral type. In general, most females
have ears of the orang-type, while the chimpan-
zee-type is chiefly characteristic of males. Con-
sidering the researches thus far made, with the
influence of age SEX race, etc., DIR. Keith finds
only one deduction possible-that slightly
greater proportion of criminals exists among
ipeople with ear tips and retroerade Cor orang)
\helices than among others. The evidence, which
lcannot yet be applied to individuals, is just
tenough to give suspicion that few criminals
fare criminals, as Lombrosa has contended, be-
cause OF defective brain development.
~
That the moon actually has an influence upon
the weather. an eminent Australian meteor
ologist, Mr.. H. c. Russell, is quite prepared to
believe. The rainfall on the coast of New South
Wales is irregular, but in the interior three dis
tinct periods have been traced, beginning with
1861, 1870 and 1885, In the first six years of each
period the rain was abundant, this being the
time when the moon was nearing its farthest
point south in declination. But other years,
after the moon had started north, were dry, and
the drouth in 1895 to 1890 was severe enough to
cause the starvation of 100000 sheep.
-
Berlin has a cancer commission, and Dr. Paul
Ehrlich has been provided with $4,000 year to
enable him to carry out his special study of the
disease.
Pennsylvania Railroads Winter Excur-
sion Route Book.
In pursuance of its annual custom, the Pas
senger Department Of the Pennsylvania Rail-
road Company has just issued an attractive and
comprehensive book descriptive of the leading
winter resorts of the East and South, and giving
the rates and various routes and combinations
routes and travel. Like all the publications