The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1906-09-01
SCIENTIFIC AGHAPS.

"A naturalist says: Men and animals
are born with a propensity to fight
Is there III the whole range Of the an.
maj creation one animal that does
not night, II it has sense enough and
powers OF locomot.on? Oysters and
clans cannot fight. If their organ Of
comoativeness IS not wanting, they
nave no use for it. They even deyour
each other, and may be said to eat
themselves, for, changing their shell
ana stomach every year these re-
| mains are generally the first morsel
! 70 gut their new system"
ne peculiar substance, known as
ASBESTOS, which was regarded as val.
neless century ago, is now in de.
.naho lor many purposes. 1t is made
ihto roofing felt. cement, theatre cur
'alns and various heat-resisting arti.
cies, and has been recently spun into
llght and fairly strong thread. Even
ropes, with or without steel cores. are
made from it for firemen. A new and
rather surprising application is for
army stockings, which have been
shown to be less irritating to the feet
OF soldiers on the march than other
stockings, and the war department of
Austria is considering their general
adoption.
The unsanitary stablng of cattle in
italy makes tuberculosis very preya-
lent among them. There has now
peen established a company for ipsur- |
ing butchers against loss by condemn.
atlon OF beef by the sanitary officials |
butchers pay to this company a pre-
MUM for each head of cattle slaught.
cred in the municipal abattoirs or for
carcasses brought there for insDec-
ton, and if the meat is condemned
the company reimburses the dealer
ana retains the carcass to be sold for
1000, after being sterilized, if only
partially infected, or to be used for
industrial purposes if found unfit for
human consumption.
beautiful little experiment that
Shows the relation between friction
and pressure, is due to Robert S. Ball,
Jf Take yardstick, or any smooth.
straight rod of uniform section, and
support it upon an outstretched finger
81 each hand. Then move the sup
porting fingers inward toward the CEN
ire OF the rod. The fingers will inya-
Elaoiy meet at the centre, although at
ne outset one may have been much
more distant than the other. The
'eason IS because the resistance to
siding. arising from pressure. is in
iersely proportional to the distance
rom the medal limo CT the rod Slid
ns takes place over that finger which
S the more distant from the centre. I
at recent meeting of the T0rrey
Botanical club Mr.. George V. Nash re- '
marked that there seems to be a gen.
raj misconception as to just what an b
rch1d is. Many call any plant which e
rows On tree, or has some peculiar ,
aature, an orchid. The mistake is
'equently made with the pitcher ~
lants and the "tailfowers." The 81
hitting in one organ, called the col &
mn, OF the stamens and pfstils serves d
distinguish the orchid family from
Il related ones. The orchid family
mbraces 5000 or 1000 species. OF u
hlch comparatively few are found in W
lie warm temperate, and almost none h;
the cold temperate, zones They !.
e mostly distributed in the tropical
1gions, in hot, humid places. Or E
lids, however. do not invariably pre-
r humid conditions. Nearly all trop- W
al orchids grow on trees. but in TEN.