Heppner gazette. [volume] (Heppner, Morrow County, Or.) 1892-1912, 1906-05-31
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This quaint prescription was printed
In "An Old Ladys Pharmacoppia." pub
lished by Mrs. Delamy in 1853: Does
Mary cough at night? Two or three
snails boiled In her barley water or tea
water or whatever she drinks might be
Of great service to her. Taken In time,
they have done wonderful cures. But
Mary must know nothing Of It,"
Gentian root, often used as a tonic,
Is considered in many malarial coun-
tries a remedy against intermittent fe-
yer. Especially Is this the case In Cor
sica In that section Of the island near
the town Of Aleria, which Is infested
with malaria. The inhabitants recent
ly protested violently against the intro
duction Of quinine on the part OF the
medical authorities, declaring that they
would not abandon the remedy which
had been used among them for centur-
les, the gentian root either powdered or
simply masticated.
OF the modern tendency to flock to
the cities writer says: "1n 1901 not
more than 80 per cent Of the entire pop
ulation Of England lived in towns and
embarked in urban industries; to-day
they who dwell In cities form more
than GO per cent Of the whole. On the
other hand, In 1901 the percentage OF
the nation who lived In strictly rural
districts and were occupied In agricul-
tural and rural pursuits amounted to
SO per cent Of the whole population;
to-day it has descended to the alarming
level of not more than IS per cent
Some years ago the addition Of mois-
ture to furnace heated air was found
by DR.. H. j. Barnes Of Boston to make
room comfortable at temperature
several degrees lower. In his recent
investigation in Southeastern Nebras-
ka, G.. A. Loveland has shown that the
air of a house Of fourteen thousand Gu
bic feet should receive from twenty to
forty quarts Of water daily, and that
this evaporation does not Increase the
relative humidity by more than ten per
cent. The humidity indoors should not
exceed about forty per cent, otherwise
there will be troublesome condensation
on the windows.
The degree to which solids slowly in
termix Is one of the recent surprising
discoveries. A New Zealand teacher
mentions the dark patches which ap-
pear opposite the steel winding stems on
the inside Of silver watch cases forty or
fifty years old, tests showing that these
patches are iron, which has vaporized.
dissolved in the silver. and diffused In
to the solid metal. Still more remark
able is an instance Of the penetration
of carbon into porcelain. Fresh pencil
marks are easily removed from an old
porcelain writing tablet. but some notes
written forty years ago have sunk into
the tablet to considerable depth and
cannot be erased.
The electron. as defined by Professor
Soddy. is an electrical conception that
has been applied to matter. 1t Is a
definite "charge"-the smallest possible
of negative electricity, and its prop
critics, unlike those Of the atom, are al
ways the same. II is particle, small
er than the atom. which was long re-
gar,ied as the smallest division OF an
element. Each atom of matter must
normally contain at least one electron.
and 1t may lose this or take on at least
one more without great change. With
one or more electrons less than the nor
NAL. the atom becomes positively charg
ed. or n positive ion; while an atom
with one or more electrons In excess IS
a negative ion.
While the transmutation of elements
Mt will Is still dream. the alkali met
ais have given J. ]. Thomson a sugges-
ton of control of the change. Emission
from these metals In light has been
long known. and he has now proven
that they give OF slow electrons, or
Beta rays. even In darkness. and that
the process is greatly Influenced by
light. heat and chemical forces. These
act as detonators. splitting up atoms
which have become unstable. This