The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1902-10-02
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DIR. Gibbes has succeeded in photo
graphing the eruption of typhoid fever
before it could either be seen or felt.
II used autochromatic plates and
made a number of exposures as quickly
as possible.
The British admiralty Is testing
small boat, carrying two hundred
pounds of gun cotton, which guided by
wireless waves encircles warship and
can be exploded to sink an approaching
submarine torpedo boat.
A new and absolutely correct method
of determining the value of diamonds
has been discovered by French inves-
tigator. The brilliancy of diamond is
shown by the degree of its fiuorescence
under the violet light of an electric arc
lamp.
Two German investigators conclude
positively that there Is nothing in the
popular belief that hay fever Is pro-
duced by irritating pollen from plants.
The disease is evidently produced by
bacteria of some sort, but how 1t gets
INTO the SYSTEM is uuhHO" Ii.
Much attention has been attracted in
England, and some apprehension arous-
ed. by the discovery Of cracks in the
walls Of St. PauPs Cathedral. Experts
think that the opening of underground
railways and sewers in the neighbor-
hood of the great structure Is respon-
sible for the damage. One OF the sug-
gested methods to secure the safety OF
the cathedral, at q cost Of about $1,000
900, Is to underpin It's foundations Ivy
carrying them down about thirty-five
feet to the solid blue clay which under
lies London.
The remarkable fact that the earliest
known ancestor, or primitive type, Of
the modern whale bore heavy armOr
on it's back, in the form of strong, bony
plates has recently been set forth by
the German paleOntologlst. Dr. o.
Abel. The plates occasionally found
associated with remains of the prime
val form of whale, the extinct zeuglO-
having belonged to gigantic turtles. but
DR.. Abel shows that they were part
of the skeleton of the zeuglodon itself.
They resemble in their character the
impenetrable bony shells of the huge
glyptOdonts that formerly inhabited
South America The suggestion is made
that at the time when they carried ar
NOR whales were amphibious creatures,
living ON the coasts and needing special
protection from breakers and from
sharks.
Colors are an interesting feature of
bacteria to which NJ. Henri Coupin has
been giving special attention. Many of
the bacteria produce colOring matter,
and most of these are themselves col
ored, the pigment being within the or
ganism, but there are colorless mi
crobes, like the green-staining bacillus
fluorescens, that spread color into the
surrounding medium. The colors are
produced in light or darkness, oxygen
being necessary and heat unfavorable.
The best known of the color=fOrming
bacilli is bacillus prodigiosus, whose
beautiful red colonies often appear on
foodstuffs, like bread, and form the
spots of blood" once supposed to be
of miraculous origin. Also familiar is
the bacillus syncyanus, giving the pc
culiar appearance to blue milk" The
bacillus polychromOgenes Of wells and
conduits is noteworthy for its produc-
ton under usual conditions of blue yio-
let. red, green, yellow and various spec
trail shades. and, on solid media. of a
beautiful indigo blue. The purple bGc-
terra differ from others In causing the
phenomena of assimilation. and they
are all sensitive to light.