The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-10-10
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MIS- CELLANY.

Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
81
and Observation-Disclosures in Railroad
neutrality-suspicious. oisoning--Fishes
Enough--Pearl Culture in China--Au-
tomania-Ancient Lenses-A Unique
Collection.
What most excites our wonder at the present
day is perhaps the extreme sensitiveness of man
made instruments. The bolometer of Dr. Lang
ley-amazed us twenty years ago by measuring
temperatures to the one-hundred- thousandth
of a degree, but as now improved it records
easily the one-hundred-million Of degree.
The coherer responds to electric waves incalcu-
laby reduced by scattering to all parts of
sphere having radius of 5000 miles. The most
delicate balance may weigh millionth part of
a gram, and the spectroscope may show bill
lionth part of gram or less of some substances,
but the electrometer is now dealing with the
even more inconceivably small. We are told, in
fact, that if 1000 grams of thorium gave out the
thousandth of gram of emanation in million
years, the radiation from one gram in one sec
ond would be sufficient to affect the electro
meter.
Some bacteria, large fungi and rotten wood
are known to glow in the dark, but shrubs and
Towering plants are not usually credited with
the property of phosphorescence. DIR. Fl. Bee
kurtz, however, has lately discovered an old
record of phosphorescence in an Indian grass
known to the Brahmins as ''diotishmati.'' The
account is of much interest to botanists, but,
while the plant has not been identified with
certainty, it is concluded that the observer was
led into error by phosphorescent bacteria on
the grass.
The late discovery in strawberries of salicylic
acid, specific in acute rheumatism, has seemed
to confirm the idea that these berries are a de-
siruble article of food for rheumatics. The
effect of the fruit cannot be dine to the salieylic
acid however as less than the hundredth of a
grain per pound is found.
-.
The roots of plants are found to have higher
temperature than the soil, but only while grow
ing.
National success has become largely a matter
of fuel supply, and alcohol fuel seems likely to
form the basis of Germany's future prosperity.
While this product of the farms is being cheap
ened by scientific methods, improved apparatus
is making its use more economically. The State
Railways of Prussia are among the large users
of power that are striving to develop the new
fuel. and in their experiments at the close of
1902 they were pumping water with rs medium
and small alcohol motors and were lighting
various placos with over 1000 incandcscent
lamps burning alcohol. The engines are run
effectively at almost the same cost as with pc
troleum oil. For the same light with ordinary
lamps, the alcohol has proven much more ex-
pensve than paraffin, but it is believed that the
the incandescent alcohol lamps will make the
cost about the same. Improvements are needed
to adopt the alcohol lamps to rough usage on
trains and to make them odorless.
AFs
A harmless matchmaking process having been
favored by the German Reichstag, the use of
phosphorus is to be prohibited after January /,
1908. The discussion of the present industry
brought out the statement that necrosis set up
in the bones of the PHOSPHORUS users make its
appearance three or four years after the work
man has left the factory, and so insidious is the
disease that victims have had bones fractured
without knowing anything was wrong. The eff
fects may extend to whole families through
heredity.
vey of the North Sea should seek means of fa-
voring fishes and their food supply Prof. w. G.
M'Intosh declares that no important species is
in danger of becoming extinct. The fishes
were not exterminated by the swarms of ggan-
tic destroyers of reptilan times, when the de-
struction must at least have equaed that of to-
day by man, and future extinction need not be
feared.
Exhaustive tests for years have convinced
Joseph L. Terrell that sulphate of aluminium is
the best hre-proofing for wood. Unlike sui
phate or phosphate of ammonia, which check
flames by emmitting ammonia gas, the alumni
mum compound forms an infusible and nom
conducting coating.
A remarkable Chinese industry is described
by A. A. Fauvel. 1t was long ago discovered
that the irritation of foreign bodies produces
pearls in mollusks, and for several centuries
pearls have been cultivated in two villages of
Tche-K iang province. The moluscs, brought
from lake considerable distance away, are
left in reservoirs for few days to become ac-
climated. The shells are then opened, lead fig
ures of Buddha or bits of mother-of-pearl are
introduced, with little paste of ground scales,
and the molluscs are returned to the reservoirs.
A food of fecal matter is regularly supplied.
After year or more the nuclei become covered
with mother-of-pearl of thickness varying with
the time, and the shells or the detached pearls
are marketed. A seasons product is estimated
at $4,000 shells, giving support to 5000 families
-
The development of rapid travelling seems to
have brought its disease, Affecting chiefly indi-
viduals of degenerate type. French physicians
find high speeds attended by kind of intoxi-
cation in certain automobilists, the effects re-
sembling the morphine delerium, and the vic
tins becoming quite unable to control their
reckless passion for rapid motion. Like the
morphine and alcohol habits, the speed habit
seems to develop gradually, entire loss of re-
straint being reached only in advanced cases.
80
Whether the ancient Romans had large opti-
cal instruments is question raised by three
lenses in Berlin museum. These lenses-ob-
tanned from old baths-are plano-convex, about
II by 10 iuches in size, and are iuaccurately
rounded and imperfectly polished. One sug-
gestion is that they were used for heating the
baths by the suns rays. The conceived emerald
supposed to have been used by Nero for viewing
the circus games is cited as proof that the Ro-
mans could have made lenses better adapted
for optical uses.
-.
About 600 micro photographs of snow crys-
tals-no two alike-are now owned by W. A.
Bentley, of Vermont, as the results of his 20
years of collecting. The perfect crystals have
been almost always been produced in the west
ern, southwestern or northwestern portions of
widespread snowstorms.