Amador ledger., 1906-04-27
SCIENTIFIC
MISCELLANY

Reported weekly for the Legder.
Voices of Fishes. s.-ReguIating a
q reat Rivers Flow Britain's AItl-
tude. Gas Cooled Cars.-A DwindI-
ing Desert. = HAIR Stimulating Rays
Electrically Made Barrels New
Theory of Deafness "A Big Cake of
Ice.
The talk of fishes" is peculiar,
as Prof. L. W. Bridges British
lecturer, showed the other day in
pointing out the voluntary sounds OF
these creatures. Some part of the
bony skeleton is movable, and when
this is rubbed against some fixed part
of the skeleton the friction of the
rough surfaces sets up a sound. The
stickleback gives an illustration. In
other fish murmuring sound is pro-
duced by the pressure of air upon the
values of the air bladder. In still
other fish there are two little flexible
spines, attracted to which is
muscle whose contraction causes the
spines to tap against the air bladder,
and this produces ID sound like the
roll of a drum.
The Sudd country, to the south of
Egypt, is region of papyfus swamps
which has resulted from the sitting
up of an ancient lake, more than 81,
600 square miles in area, which once
received the waters not only of the
Albert Nile, but also of the Blue Nile
and the Sobat. 1t is proposed to cut
off this swamp area from the river
channel by a canal from Bor to the
junction of the Sobat and the Nile,
distance of 200 miles. The summer
discharge of the Upper Nile, about
60O cubic meters per second, would
thus be passed on to Khartoum and
would increase the volumne of the
stream at that season 30 per cent,
instead of being lost by evaporation
in the swamp. No storage works at
the equatorial lakes can give effective
regulation without this "cut off. "
OF the 5S, 324 square miles of Eng
land and Wales, Miss Nora E. Mac
Mum finds that 26, 49, are under $50
feet in elevation above the sea; l6, :
800 are between $50 and 500 feet; 10,
476 are between 500 and 1000 feet !;
469a are between 1000 and 1000 feet !;
300 are between 1000 and 5000 teet !;
aud are more than 5000 feet.
Refrigerator cars cooled by the eX-
pansion and evaporation of read
lily liQueiied gas we're tried last season
with good results on one of the rail
roads leading from Paris. Evapora-
tion was controlled by an automatic
thermostat. This consisted of a coil
ed tube filled with a volatile liquid
that expanded to a considerable de-
gree on heating, and as this caused
the pressure to rise the coil was un-
wound, and the motion of coiling and
uncoiling was made to move the
valves controlling the liquetied gas.
The thermostatic regulator was so
arranged as to be automatically
thrown out of gear or restored to
working condition on the opening or
closing of the doors of tins car.
The worthless area of the Sahara
Desert is proving smaller than has
been believed. Prof. b. f. GautIer,
the first explorer since 1926 to cross
from Algeria to the Niger, has lately
found in the Adral plateau, $50 miles
from Gao on the Niger, wide belt OF
steppe having from six to twelve
inches of rain a year, and covered
with ponds and grass. Evidences OF
a large Stone Age population abound,
including weapons, grinding stones,
rock drawings and graves. 1t appears
that the relgon must have gradually
dried up, but that the desert con-
ditions are now disappearing and the
ram belt is again extending more and
more to the north.
Ultraviolet light is claimed by
Prof. Kronmayer, German expert
menter. to have had remarkable effect
in the treatment of falling LaiI
and badness. In thirty-two cases
where every other remedy had failed
the light rays cured twenty seven, and
not only the hair but in some cases
the eye brows and beard we're restor-
ed, although the trouble was mostly
of long standing