The suburban citizen., 1902-06-21
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Selenium, which has the curious
property of losing its resistance to the
electric current under the influence OF
light, is used in the telelectroscope and
is worth SD a pound.
Two continental trolley automobile
lines are described in La Nature. One
is at Eberswald, on the outskirts o.
Berlin. It's regular trip is only kilo
meter-between the station and thu
Place du Marche. The Omnibuses have
room for eighteen persons and are rui
by two motors of sixteen horse powel
each. The other line runs between th'
station at Fontainebleau and the vii
lage of Samois. The distance is fou
kilometres The trip requires twent!
minutes. The omnibus is connected
with the trolley wires by a flexible
cable, so arranged that the slack is au
tomatically taken up.
The contradiction in the name of sill
worm catgut is explained 10y process
of manufacture used in the island o.
Procida, in the Bay of Naples. Mucl
of the catgut, so-called, used for string
ing the lilies" used by fishermen il
made there, and it is not catgut at all
but product Of the silk worm. Tn,
caterpillars are killed just as they arr
about to begin spinning their cocoons
and the silk glands are removed and
subjected TO sort of picking, whicl
Is secret of the trade. The thread
are then carefully drawn out by skilled
workers, mostly women, and the al
most unbreakable strings for the fliel
are made from them. The threads var,
IN length from twelve TO twenty
inches.
The average man would find 1t rathe
difficult TO 90 into fve-acre turniI
field and make a close estimate Of tht
weight of the turnips there. But tb,
English farmer finds the calculation
comparatively simple. He generally
plants his turnips in ridges twenty
eight inches apart which, the farmer
knows, makes ninety ridges TO tht
acre. Now, to estimate the weight Of
a crop he carefully measures off yard
from a row where the turnips seen
about the average, and pulls up tht
turnips in that yard and weighs them
Supposing that they weigh ten pounds
4 simple calculation shows that the
crop averages little more than TWEEN
ty-eight tons TO the acre. If they
weigh eleven pounds, the average viii
be about thirty-one tons TO the acre.
Miss Agnes NJ. Clerke contributes Il
the Observatory an article on "Tht
Suns Movement in Space" In con
Guiding she says: Three determine
tons of the suns movement in spac,
stand out from the rest as of particular
interest and authority, namely, New
combs, Kapteyn's and Campbell's
Newcomb deduced an apex about siy
degrees southwest Of the star Alpha
Lyrae Vega; Kapteyn fixed the poin
three degrees farther west and six de
grees farther south than this; Camp
bell, working with the radial velocities
Of $50 stars, located it fifteen degrees
exactly south of the point fixed upor
by Newcomh. his determination, how
aver, being admittedly uncertain, owing
to the paucity of available materia
from the Southern Hemisphere. Tha'
the solar system is at present travelling
along line directed about midway be
tween Alpha and Beta Lyrae may
then, be admitted as probable Above
all the rate Of our advance has at las
come to be known. apart from dubious
assumptions. Directly given by the
spectroscopic method 1t came out from
Campbells discussion twenty kilome
tres 12.4 miles per second. Eact
year. accordingly. we explore a belt OF
space Learly 4O0.00O,OO0 of miles il
width and our travelling. like that oi
the clouds. is 'irrevocable.' Shall We
find ourselves in an 'ampler ether az
We proceed. or will the wreckage oi
our little planet help to stock the voit
with meteorites"