The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-04-19
Correspondence Baltimore Comfy Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

oOlHNIlFlC .
Looking Beyond the Universal Fur
mace for Electric Light Circuits-Pain-
less Slaughter Air Sanitation--New
MISUNDERSTANDING by Scent-Qui.
Mines uccessor-Vanished Mountains
"A Trick of Photography--Steel for
Magnet.
Photography has enabled astronomers to peer
far into the depth of space, says Dr. A. W.
Roberts, of South Africa, and perhaps has even
given glimpses of that hinteTand that lies be.
yond the universe of stars. When sky photo
graphs of very long exposure are taken say. OF
20 to 30 hours on different nights-they do not
reveal the vast background of stars that we
would expect to see. Indeed. they bring out
not many more stars than photographs fshorter
exposure; but they show background appar-
emily of wisp and streamers and whorls of nebu-
lous matter. Is it possible, he asks, that we are
seeing beyond the stars into that lumber-room
where world-stuff is stored? at the Royal OBJ
servatory, Cape Town. this long-exposure pho
Biography has given results undreamed of 20
years ago ; and the marvellous detail on plates
exposed 25 hours suggests that in the near flu
ture we may expect photographs of certain
parts of the sky after an exposure of rs days.
-
In the new electric furnace of Prof. Holborn,
of Berlin, thin porcelain tube cylinder is
placed within a resistance coil of nickel or pati-
mum wire, and the space between the coil and
the containing vessel is packed with quartz
sand or asbestos. The crucibles or tubes to be
heated are placed within the porcelain cylinder.
With current of IA amperes at ITO volts, the
platinum coil may be heated to 15OOoC, but the
nickel coil cannot safely be raised above OOO0C.
~
A lethal chamber of the Paris pound is a cage
capable of containing 80 condemned dogs. 1t is
rolled upon platform. is sunk by hydraulic
force six feet into the earth and Theoretically
closed, carbonic acid is turned on, and in 40
seconds every dog dies without struggle. By
the old system of using common gas, the ami
mails suffered 2 or minutes.
sFs
Better ventilation is the next great health
problem to be solved, in the view of DR.. A.
Wynter Blyth. He believes that living in close
rooms is the great cause of the low state of pub
lie health that leads to the spread of consump
ton and other diseases, and he contends that
human life would be heightened and human eff
cheney increased il some of the engineering skill
now being applied to sewage and sewage dispo-
sal were diverted TO study of the air supply of
factories and other crowded places. It is now
within the possibilities of science to make even
the deepest mine both habitable and healthy.
We may even imagine future underground san
itaria, which rain and frost never reach, and
where the jewellers breathe dry, warm purified
and ozonized air and enjoy the brilliant white
light of perpetual summer day.
~
Air navigation on novel plan is to be attemp-
ted by M. Sibillot, French aeronaut. His new
Siderable balloon, which is expected to be man
in oil fbor fo 70 l,a
refrigerator and a heating apparatus, and loss of
hydrogen is avoided by cooling the gas when it
is desired to descend, heating giving the expan-
sion necessary for making the balloon rise again.
-.
Bees are thought by Mr.. f. w. L. Sladen, an
English observer, to hear their own well-known
hum, but to be deaf to ordinary sounds. He
GLAZING to have discovered that the membrane
between the fifth and sixth dorsal segments of
the workers is really scent producing organ,
instead of seat of hearing, and that this scent
forms means of communication between bees.
~.
An absolute cure for malarial fever must be
regarded as a priceless boon. In nine severe
African cases, which failed to yield to quinine,
M. Armand Gautier has caused rapid recovery
by minute injections of sodium methylarsenate.
Whether the drug may be administered by the
mouth is not yet known.
-
Sero -therapy is still spreading and curative
serum for whooping cough is a late develop
ment by French doctor.
81
A puzzling anomaly of the earth's gravity has
been brought to notice in Central India by the
recent survey. Over most of the country as far
south as l50 north latitude. the plumb line is de-
Elected northward, the effect being explained by
the attraction Of the vast mass of the Himalaya
mountains of the upland of Tibet; but over a
narrow strip 1000 miles long, between22o and 24o
north latitude, the DETECTION proves to be toward
the south. This narrow belt extends east and
west across India from the delta of the Ganges
to that of the Indus-being well south, however,
of the great Ganges plain. Major Barrows In a
paper to the Royal Astronomical Society, sug-
gests that the curious reversal of the general
law may be due to a sunken mountain chain,
which has become buried in silt either through
some great catastrophe or bv gradual subsistence.
~.
In cinematograph pictures of racing motor
cars, the wheels at certain points have been
shown turning backward To explain this sim
gular effect, NJ. Lumiere states that when each
new film is exposed at the moment when each
spoke in turn reaches given point, the wheel
Will appear stationary, the successive views De-
ing exactly alike. But if the films travelling
quicker than the spokes, each spoke is photo
graphed before it reaches the position of expo
sure of the spoke in front of it, giving the wheel
the appearance of revolving backward.
~
The permanent magnetizing of steel has been
tested by Herr A. Abt with a variety of carbon,
manganese, chromium, tungsten, nickel and
nickel chromium stees. The maximum result
was given by a current of 20 amperes, the high
est permanent magnetism was reached in nickel
chromiumIsteel, and steel with much manganese
showed no permanent magnetism at all.
80
The land mammals of North America, inclu-
ding the West Indies are found by Miller and
REIN to number 1,45O species and subspecies.
Only about 400 were on record in 1885,