The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-01-18

Oxygen From the ARA Promising
Oil-The Nucleus of Pearls-Sugar for
Army Horses-Preventive incubation
of Plants-Deep-Sea Sharks.
A new field has been opened to florists by late
experiments. Plants are made to blossom out
of season by giving them period of rest, like
that of winter, and the usual method is to ex-
pose them to frost, causing the leaves to fall,
after which they grow as in spring. The plan is
inconvenient and somewhat uncertain. In 1895
Prof. Johannsen showed that exposure to ether
vapor has the same effect as cold, and Prof. AL
bert Maumene has now brought forward proof
that this process is practicable. The plants are
placed for so hours in tight box containing
ether vapor, the soil under them being kept
dry. The leaves fall and the flow of sap is ar
rested, when warmth and moisture cause rapid
development of leaves and blossoms, as in spring
Full-blown ilacs have been shown in September,
a month after etherizing. The process is most
effective from July to September, and it is at
present adapted only to plants that flower in
spring on the previous years wood and form
buds as early as July. These include such
shrubs as the azalea, spirea, SNOWFALL, etc.
~
Stonehenge, the mysterious monument of
Salisbury Plain, seems to have been originally
right stones in its outer wall and an inner horse
shoe structure OF ten even larger stones. The
outer diameter was about 100 feet, the whole
being surrounded by circular earthen bank
about 800 feet I'm diameter. An avenue runs
from the centre to a single stone about 250 feet
toward the northeast, and Sir Norman Lockyer
and Mr. +. G. Penrose suppose this to have or
iginally pointed to sunrise on the longest day of
the year. From the changes in the point of sun
rise, they fix Stonehenge's date at 1880 b. c.,
with possible error of 200 years. Polished
hints found in the late raising of one of the
monoliths indicate that the stones were trimmed
before bronze implements appeared, and that
the work must have been done before 1900 b. G.
~
Cheap oxygen will effect enormous saving in
fuel especially in metallurgical operations and
will doubtless revolutionize some industries.
The separation apparatus of NJ. Raoul Pictet'
the Geneva physicist, is in the form of ten pan
like stills, one upon another A vertical pipe
passes through the center of the entire series,
and each still holds supply coil connecting
with supply main at one side of the apparatus
and the central pipe, and a discharge coil
through which the evaporated gases escape.
These coils are long and are so arranged that
the evaporating gases abstract heat from the in
liquid air, and ordinary air, previously dried by
cooling below the freezing point of water, is
pumped through the supply coils at pressure
of 30 to 40 pounds per square inch, and liquefes
as it reaches the central pipe, keeping up the
the supply. The liquefied air passes to the top
of the apparatus, where a filter removes the
frozen carbonic acid 1t then enters the top
still, overlooking into each of the others in turn,
and evaporating as it passes downward, the
-F,reesssak Z ing now that of the atmosphere.
The boiling point of nitrogen being 1880. be-
low zero, 12o lower than that of oxygen, the gas
first passing off is nearly pure nitrogen. Even
at the fifth still the discharge is so per cent. nj
trogen, but from the three lowest stills it is So
per cent. oxygen, the ordinary product for the
market From the bottom still alone oxygen of
about 90 per cent. may be had 1t is estimated
that plant treating 800 tons of air per day
would yield ITO tons of 80 per cent oxygen at
cost of cents per 1000 cubic feet. or 80 per
cent. oxygen at CENTS and that the solid car
bonic acid would probably pay this COST About
roo horsepower would be needed to operate
such plant.
OF the many substitutes for olive oil, the ia
vorte is cotton seed oil, but German expert
ments are reported to have shown formidable
promises to become quite important 1t is
adapted for many uses, and seems to be espe-
cially desirable as a lamp oil, for dyeing pur-
poses and for soap-making.
~
The origin of pearls has been a subject of
much speculation. About $50 year ago Filippi
of Turin announced that a living organism
forms the nucleus and in a recent investiga-
ton NJ. Raphael Dubois, a French naturalist,
has shown that all pearls found in a common
pearl-bearing mollusk are cysts enclosing dis
tones small marine worms. In the month of
August, when few pearls are obtained, the tiny
young distomes, fiftieth of an inch in dame
ter, are to be seen instead as reddisb-yellow
points. These become gradually coated with
carbonate of lime, in an early stage appearing
as black specks, and later as brilliant pearls,
which remain until the following summer, when
they drop to pieces and the parasite resumes
activity and reproduces its kind. But if the
parasite dies the crust continues to grow,
large and beautiful pearl being but the sarco-
phagus of a long dead worm. Just how nearly
universal this cause of the formation of pearls
may be does not appear, but experiments with
fresh-water pearls show an egg as nucleus.
~
AS result of bad roads and heavy transpor-
NSNA
overworked during the rainy season, and many
of them have been exhausted or have fallen
ready victims to disease. To give greater en-
durance, sugar has been added to the food of
the animals. The effects have been quite sur
prising, and it is reported that not only has IA
tigue been overcome by two ounces of sugar in
the daily food. but that animals that had be-
come quite useless regained strength and ca
pacity for work
"a
Vaccination Of plants is the idea of French
botanist. Parasitic diseases-microbia or fun
goid-harm through the poison they cause the
tissues to absorb, and incubation with suitable
cultures makes the tissues proof against alb
sorption.
-.
A sharks tooth has been found in submarine
cable at depth of $50 fathoms. Five varieties
of shark are known to go as deep as 800 fathoms,