The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-03-08
OOvTsspOndsnes Baltimore County linton.
SCIENTIFIC MIS- CELLANY.

OOvTsspOndsnes Baltimore County linton.
SCIENTIFIC MIS- CELLANY.
Ancient Gold Mining-A Promising Pig
ment--An Electrical Anomaly--Unex-
planned Huergy-Marvels In Snow
North American Mammals-Blue and
Green in Misunderstanding Sheep.
mining center of the ancient world-proba-
bly, worked as early as $500 B. C.-was between
the Red Sea and the Nile in the Eastern Desert OF
Egypt. In an account of the recent successful
search for the long-lost mines, Mr.. @. j. Afford
states that the remains consist of irregular stone
huts, usually containing about so to 100 square
feet, and these are grouped in some places in
twos and threes, and in others in towns large
enough for 1000 men and having outside walls.
The ancient workings are buried in sand. The
only vestiges of the mining appliance are nu-
merous circular quartz mills and elliptical rub
bling stones, the latter having been evidently
used with stone rolling pins for reducing the
rock to coarse powder, while the circular mills
with an upper and lower stone-finished the
grinding to the necessary fneness. The gold
was then washed out.
a.
To obtain the remarkable new pigment of DIR.
A. s. Ramage, the waste liquor from iron pick
ling-usually ferrous sulphate or chloride with
some free acids neutralized and then oxi-
died by air and steam, alkaline solution and
much water being added as the chemical action
proceeds The ferrous sulphate is oxidized into
basic ferric sulphate, which the water, by the
process known as hydrolysis, separates into
sulphuric acid and basic ferric hydrate. The
latter is the pigment, which is light yellow but
easily convertible into the various reds by heat,
and which has great absorptive capacity for oil
and great covering power
-
A puzzling fact is that high-frequency cleo
trical currents transmit to man an immense
amount of energy without producing any sensa-
ton. A suggested explanation is that the cur
rents pass over the surface of the body, but two
French electricians have shown that such cur
rents kill rabbits and rats.
"a
The new chemical elements of the last few
years have impressed us with their suggestions
of secrets yet to be revealed. A French writer
notes that the rare metals from uranium ores
polonfum, radium and actinium, discovered in
1898 and 1s99-have startled us with properties
that appear to be opposed to existing physical
and chemical theories, and probably open the
way to q new era in this history of science
They seem to create energy from nothing
Without percep5ible loss or outside aid, they
produce light and electricity, and their emission
of Becquerel rays-which resemble Roentgen
rays and were first noticed in 1896 in uranium
is 100000 times greater than that of uranium.
The self-luminosity of radium. sufficient to
show writing, is not sensibly diminished at the
end of year. The new metals impart fiuores-
cence to the diamond, alkaline substances, pa
per, etc., and their salts have powerful chemical
action-converting oxygen into ozone discolor-
ing glass and porcelain, theoretically affecting
Photographic plates, and attacking the skin and
destroying the termination of seeds. These are
effects Of the radiation
s*s
In his study of snow crystals Mr.. w. A. Bent
ley has secured from four to thirty-four photo
graphs in nearly every, great storm that has
passed over Vermont since 1884. With every
picture he has recorded the temperature, the
kinds and heights of the clouds, the direction
and velocity of each cloud stratum, the direc-
ton and velocity of the surface winds, and the
hourly changes in the form of the crystals. His
photographs now number over 800, no two being
alike. The origin and cause of the different
nuclei are as much mystery as ever, but it
has been learned that the most perfect and
beautiful tabular crystals are mostly confined
to the western and northwestern portions of
great storms, and that columnar and granular
forms also have each their respective places.
~.
Sleeping after eating is condemned by Ger
man physician, who has shown experimentally
that stomach movements are lessened, and
acidity is induced.
-.
Tho farraofio1 ,,,ornp,o1s 90 No,4t, A,.o~;o,
were found by Prof. Baird in 1857 to number go
species, not including the bats. The later ten
dency has been to make more divisions, and,
with new discoveries and the addition of marine
forms, Mr. D. g. Eliots 1901 list gives 62S Species
besides 1858 subspecies. The rodents have in
creased from 100 species to $50 species and 255
the insectivores, from 26 species to
Al species and % subspecies. There are now
recognized seven species of reindeer, four or
Eve of Rocky Mountain sheep, nine species and
three subspecies of bears, and not less than
twenty species and four subspecies of skunks
~.
The blue and green colors of frogs, lizards
certain fishes and other vertebrates have been
investigated by two French biologists. black
pigment causes the blue color by what Pouchet
called "cerulescence," or kind of fluorescence,
and the green color is due to mixture of black
and yellow pigments. The colored skins seem
to serve as selves for separating useful and
harmful light. The useful red heat rays are al
lowed to pass, but the violet and ultraviolet,
which induce skin disease or other i'll effects,
are reflected.
-.
A peculiar breed of dumeSticated sheep, hay-
ing goat-like horns. has been kept by natives of
the Bunden Oberland, Switzerland, and appears
to have been descended directly from the So
called peat-sheep of the Swiss lake-dwellings.
Alarm Is now felt at the present scarcity of the
The breed is already nearly extermi-
mated through crossing, and another interesting
type of animal life will have disappeared in
few years unless Steps are taken to preserve it.
80
Glacial periods, it appears, may result from
quite moderate changes of climate. Assuming
that some cooling in the polar regions lowers
the mean temperature, Mr.. H. N. Dickson
that the changes of temperature
and rainfall necessary to produce all known
glacial phenomena are much less than has been
supposed.
Property TransfersinB Baltimore County.
Deeds, Leases, Mortgages, Bills of Sale, etc.,
received for record in the Office of the Clerk of
the Circuit Court for Baltimore county:
DEEDS.
o. e. Robinson and wife to Henrietta Wood
Roland Park Company TO the Seventh Baptist
Church of Baltimore.