Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1906-06-07
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ID 49, ANp
s4Ei1VentiOn


Commenting on Benjamin Franklin's
kite experiment, which proved that
lightning and electricity are the same,
brilliant examples of luck yet recorded
To attempt the extraction of lightning
flashes from lowering sky was almost
suicidal. Even at this late day timid
persons occasionally fly to feather beds,
sit on glass-legged chairs, or find refuge
in rubber boots during thunderstorms.
A repetition of Franklin's experiment
cost his immediate imitator his life"
Emil jung, a professor in the Uni
versity of Geneva, says that snails per-
ceive the odor of many substances, but
only when not far away. In order to
prove this it is necessary merely to dip
a glass rod in a strongly smelling sub
stance and bring it near the large ten
tacles of a snail in motion. If it is put
close to these horns, the tentacles are
violently drawn back. AS the animal
perceiyes the odOr, it changes its course.
Snails also smell by means of their
skin. Contact Is not necessary, for the
mere vicinity of perfume causes an in
dentatiOn of the skin.
An Englishman who Is large en-
ployer of labor has been investigating
the arguments of those who say that
workingman under modern conditions
becomes at an early age valueless. He
has kept a record of all accidents that
have incapacitated his men for three
days and upward. The people engaged
in his employment are from 10 to 81
years of age, and he asserts that more
accidents occur to men under 80 than
to those over so. He says: 81 would
much rather intrust an exceptionally
dangerous job to man over 80 than to
one Of so years Of age"
Amateur entomologists will be inter.
ested in a suggestion by DR.. f. e. Luz
for the preservation of all kinds OF
spiders webs. The webs should be
sprayed from an atomizer with artists
shellac, and then, if they are Of tbs
ordinary geometric form, pressed care
fully against a glass plate, the support
ing strands being at the same time sew.
cred. After the shellac has dried, the
plates carrying the webs can be stored
away in a cabinet. Even dOme-shaped
webs may be preserved, in their orig
inal form by spraying them with shell
lac and then allowing them to dry be
fore removal from their supports. Many
spiders webs are very beautiful, and
all are characteristic Of the species to
which they belong, so that their perma
nent preservation is very desirable.
Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, who re-
Gently visited the electric plant in Nor
way, where soil fertilizers are made
direct from the atmosphere, describes
the apparatus there used as differing
from all others in that the fame of
electric sparks is caused to move rap
idly through the air instead of having
the air blown over it. The result is the
production of a much greater quantity
of nitric oxid in a given time. The
flame disk" formed between the cleo
trodeS, swiftly expands and contracts,
being now only half an inch and now
six feet in diameter. To make nitrogen
burn with oxygen, electric energy must
be pumped in, because, whereas in ordi-
nary combustion, such as occurs when
carbon combines with oxygen, heat is
given out, the formation of nitric oxid
is an endothermic reaction; that is to
say, heat is absorbed. Prof. Thomp-
son estimates the nitrogen hanging over
the city of London alone as considera-
bly, greater In quantity than all that Is
contained in the nitrate beds of Chill