The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1904-06-24

8 sssse4i1veantiorl

Natural causes sometimes bring
about sudden lowering of the heads
of lofty mountains, but perhaps there
is no record of the operations of man
having achieved such a feat except in
the case of the vast rock-slide at Tur-
tie Mountain, in the province of AL
berta, Canada, on April 20, 1908. The
mining town of Frank was overwhelm-
ed, and the height of the mountain was
reduced as much as 1000 feet. The
fall resulted from the honeycombing
by miners of 10-foot seam of coal
penetrating the base of the mountain.
From recent photographs. the era
tiers and craterlets of the moon are es--
timated to number more than two hun
dred thousand, but less than a million.
White patches in some craters and the
bright. lines radiating in some cases
hundreds of miles are thought by Pro-
fessor Pickering to be due to snow,
and the less conspicuous lunar canals,
which gradually appear, increase and
fade away in the lunar day, are at
tributed by the same authority to vege-
tation. A thin atmosphere of carbOnic
acid and water vapor may feed the
plants.
II. w. Conn, the bacteriologist of
Storrs Conn, says that while milk at
20 degrees Fahrenheit may keep not
longer than forty-eight hours, at 90 de-
grees Fahrenheit it may not curdle for
two weeks. AT 90 degrees the ordi-
nary milk organisms increase very
slowly; but on the other hand, the
putrefaction bacteria continue to de
velop rapidly and while they may not
sour the milk, nevertheless they make
it unwholesome. For this reason Mr.
Conn says that milk which has been
kept sweet by a low temperature
should be viewed with suspicion.
The demands of automobile manu-
facturers for a metal able to sustain
extraordinary pulling and twisting
strains have led to the invention in
France of a new alloy, which is called
'formetal." 1t contains, in addition to
the usual constituents of bronze and
brass, a mixture of other metallic ele-
ments, which contribute great power
said to be unalterable by the effects of
exposure to the air, and it resists the
attack of weak acids 1t can be drawn
in bars or rolled and forged. Nuts
and screws made of it are unoxidiz-
able.
The fact that compression or bend
ing causes a substance to emit Mays
no fnd 70 n nrAfr, l,ok
vibrations producing sound should
have the same effect as the sounding
body undergoes slight but rapidly re-
peated strains. Experiments with
tuning fork, a bronze bell, large steel
cylinder and a siren proved this to be
true, and the phosphorescent screen
showed that the air also produces as
well as transmits the rays. Another
investigator NJ. Meyer, has discovered
similar radiation in vegetable tissue,
the green parts of the plant giving the
most intense effect.
The ether is the supposed medium,
filling all space and interpenetrating
all bodies, by which the waves of light
and other forms of radiant energy are
transmitted. Many theories of the ma
ture of the ether have been proposed.
The latest comes from the famous
chemist Mendeleef, who thinks the
ether may be a chemical element, so
light that the velocity of it's molecular
vibrations is sufficient to render it in
dependent of gravitation. If it's ato-
mic weight is supposed to be one-mil-
lioneth of that of hydrogen, it is be-
lieved it could escape the attraction
of the largest bodies in the universe.
Mendeleef proposes for it the name
newtonium.