Custer County Republican. (Broken Bow, Neb.) 1882-1921, 1903-06-25

The milky sea, as It is now known to
mariners, Is not yet fully understood.
1t seems to be most common In the
tropical waters of the Indian Ocean,
and is described as weird, ghastly and
awe-insplring and as giving the OBJ
server on shipboard the sensation OF
passing through sort Of luminous fog
In which sea and sky seemed to join
and all sense of distance Is lost. The
phenomenon Is probably due to some
form of phosphorescence.
The volatile oils that give plants their
odors are usually regarded as waste
products which play no part in the veg
etable economy. DR.. George Hender-
son suggests that they may serve the
useful purpose of preventing damage
by night frost during the towering per
Tod. 1t Is well known that moisture In
the air prevents radiation and loss of
heat, and Tyndall showed that If the
notwithstanding power of dry air he rep
resented by 1, that of air saturated
with moisture would be II, which
WOulu bG llCItuptu w W tuNN" W
the essential oil of rosemary. to 100
by that Of cassa, and to 372 by that of
anlseed.
Count Zeppelin, whose experiments
with q gigantic ar-ship over the Lake
of Constance attracted worldwide at
tention few years ago, has devised
novel form of propellers intended to
drive light-draft boats and launches.
Instead of operating In the water, Yep
pelin's propellers, like those used to
drive balloons, rotate in the atmos-
phere. They are specially intended for
use in very shallow waters, and In
tropical rivers which contain so many
aquatic plants that the propeller of an
ordinary boat becomes clogged with
them. Boats having very slight draft
can be skinned along with such propel-
lers at the rate of several miles an hour.
Professor Curie, of Paris, who aided
by his wife, discovered and extracted
from pitchblende the strange substance
called radium, recently remarked that
he would not venture into room con-
tanning one kilogram of radlum because
it would probably destroy his eyeslght,
burn Off his skin and even kill him.
'Radium gives Off more abundantly than
any other known substance the mystic
rious emanations named Becquerel
rays, which are supposed to consist of
almost Infinitely minute particles. They |
are driven or with velocity as high !
as 100000 miles per second, and cause
serious infammatlons upon the hands
of persons working with the substance. |
They also give rise to luminous effects. |
The Fata Morgana, beautiful at.
mospheric phenomenon, which takes its |
name from one of the fairies of medic |
val legend, and Is specially prevalent |
at the Strait Of Messina, between Italy |
and Sicily, has lately been critically |
studied by DR.. Boccara, Of the technical
college at. Reggie. He has seen the APP
partitions under three different forms
aerial, marine and multiple. In the first
case, buildings on the Italian coast |
were seen projected on the Sicllan
coast beyond. In the second case, arches
on railway above Messina were visl-
BILE, magnified, and more brilliant than
the real arches, standing below the sea
line, with no apparent support. In the
multiple Morgana, aerial and marine
apparitions are visible simultaneously
All these appearances are ascribed to
variations In atmospheric density, pro.
ducing abnormal refractlon.