The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1904-06-18

TRACING SHIPS PATH-A FURNACE MI
cRoscoPE-AN IRISH MYsTERY-AN AL
LEGED New RADIOACTIVE SUBsrANcE-THE
PULSE REcIsTER-CoUNrIEc By ANIMALS.
The most obvious changes on the sun are
those marked by spots, and it has been long
understood that the cycle of eleven years in
which these spots occur corresponds to similar
cycle in rain fall on the earth. More recent
study of solar influence, says Lockyer, show
that it is the prominences instead of the spots
that are chiefly associated with atmospheric and
magnetic disturbances on the earth. The prom
inence cycle of 81 years is especially conspicu-
Gus in the meteorology of India, while a third
cycle-35 years in length-has been traced re-
Gently in the climates of the whole earth, each
11-year cycle being different from that immedi-
ately preceding and that following
80
"Meteorit' is the name given to the new metal
of w. Rubel, German chemist, which is said
to be aluminium hardened by chemical process.
The specific gravity is practically the same as
that of aluminium; the metal is not affected by
weak acids, the atmosphere or sea water; it can
be cast like iron, and has per cent. greater
tensile strength than cast iron and it be
recast indefinitely. 1t can be rolled cold, is
nearly conductive as copper, retains high
polish, and can be plated.
sss
Oysters are examined by Xrays for pearls
by Raphael Dubois, French investigator. The
oysters are not injured, and those containing
pearls too small to be of value are returned alive
for further growth.
The ostrich is being acclimatized in Southern
Europe by NJ. Octave Justice, whose eighty
specimens from South Africa are thriving on q
nice.
s*A
The automatic compass of NJ. Heit, which has
been brought to notice in Marseilles after test
of several months, is claimed to offer an i'm
portant aid to navigation. The basin is divided
into isolated sections, and an electric circuit is
SO arranged that a flexible wire moving over a
small silver index attached to the card gives a
record minute by minute of the angle of the
needle with the meridian, thus supplying COM
plete register of the ships course and of the
time of the helmsman's changes. Certain Sec
tons are connected to call-bells, which signal to
the commander any unusual devations. The
apparatus shows the speed of the vessel by reg.
istering the revolutions of the screw, and it also
indicates the time of departure and of every stop
and start.
A novel microscope for viewing melted or
intensely hot substances has been described to
the Vienna Academy of Sciences by Prof c.
Doeter. An electric oven two inches high Is
mounted on the object stand, and yields tempera
lures up to 1900 degrees c. In use the lens is
separated from the heated object by about one
inch. Even at the highest temperatures of the
substance under examination however, both mi
croscope and objective are kept quite cool by q
special arrangement of asbestos plates and q
spiral tube carrying ice cold water.
-.
Tough Neagh, covering $50 square miles in
northern Ireland, has twice shown remarkable
phenomenon, as reported by Mr. w. s. Smith
of Antrim. On Feb. ~, 1895, most of the ics
in the lake broke up, leaving intact strip about
a third of a mile wide along the southeastern
shore, and mile of this strip was raised al
intervals of few yards into bridges or tunnels
from which large and small masses of ice were
projected upon shore, forming a ridge 2 to II
feet high. An aged woman recalled a similar
occurrence of the cold winter of ISI4-Is. Wher,
the ice-mixed with boulders-came from, ant
what shot the blocks upon shore problem.
awaiting solution.
80
Radium's rays are of three knds-Delta rays
hardly penetrating solids at all; Beta rays
moderately absorbed by solids and powerful,
DETECTED by the Magnet and Gamma rays, diff
6cult of absorption and not to be detected
| Radio-tellurium, the very active new substanc.
| that Prof Markwald of Berlin has found II
exceedingly minute quantity in pitch-blende
| gives off only Alpha rays. These were stopped
by sheet of paper, but they passed through ;
| very thin sheet of aluminium, and they showed
| in high degree the power of making air a gooC
| tation of some hundred-thousandths of graInmt
of the new substance was placed on copper
plate. With this Prof. Markwald stopped SCI
of electric chimes, caused Leyden jar to dis
charge through the air without sparks, and rams
an electric bell by current passed through tn,
air from a condensing machine to the cop
per plate. A sheet of paper between the
plate and the machine interrupted the cur
rent and stopped the bell.
Watching the pulse adds seriously to the
strain upon the surgeon during an operation
under chloroform, cocaine or ether. This is
done automatically by the new pulse regis
ter of DR.. Gartner, of Vienna, which con
sists of a watck-like box to be attached to
the patients forearm, the hands upon q
graduated dial being made by an elastic spring
to register very precisely the pulse and blood
pressure vibrations. The indications are much
more sensitive than the physicians finger
Evidence that animals can count has beer
collected by Signor Mancini. Horses in the
collieries at Hainault have regular number
of daily trips, and invariably seek their stables
after the thirtieth. A dog remembered the
twenty-sixth buried bone short time after
digging up twenty-five Birds count their eggs
magpies count only to four. The latter i:
true also of monkeys.