Middletown transcript., 1908-08-29
SCIENTIFIC NOTES

An electrically operated clothes wrin
ger is one of the latest inventions for the
domestic laundry.
There are 125 miles of electric street
railways in Rio Janeiro. The current il
obtained from water power.
The human system can endure heat oi
212 degrees, the boiling point of water,
because the skin is bad conductor. and
on account of the perspiration cooling the
body. Men have withstood without in.
jury a heat of 300 degrees for several
minutes.
Experiments show that there is an in
innate relation between the color of sea
water and the proportion of salt it holds
in solution, the blue water containing
much more salt than the green, the diff
ference in the two eolors being entirely a
matter of more or less brine.
Thunder is just the snap that we hear
in our electric machines greatly intensi-
fed, and it is no doubt caused by the
violent commotion in the air by the rush
of electricity through it. Light travels
enormously faster than sound; conse-
quently we see the flash long before we
hear the thunder, the interval depending
on the distance of the lightning from US.
Fish contain three times as much phos-
phorus in their composition as quadru=
peds, and as phosphorus is an essential con"
stituent of the human brain and requires
renewal in proportion to the amount of
work that organ is required to perform, it
follows that dish partly composed of
fish will be serviceable to such as are en-.
gagged in severe mental labors.
Rabies is far more common disease
than is generally admitted, so that DR..
E. G. Schroeder, of the Bureau of Animal
Industry, urges constant observation of
dogs and their muzzling in public places.
Recent progress has greatly lessened its
effects, for since Negri's discovery in 1903
of the distinguishing heterogeneous
in the nerve cells, the disease is easily
recognizable, and the Pasteur treat
ment is effective in curing it. The NOR
tality of sixty and eighty per cent. in un-
treated bites on hands and head has been
reduced to 0.75 and 1.25 per cent.
The smoke from the bowl of ones pipe
is blue because, coming direct from the
red hot tobacco, it is very highly oxidized,
but the smoke from ones lips is gray be-
cause it is highly watered and hydro.
carbonized.
A telephone instrument encased in
glass has been manufactured by the gen.
eral manager of Western telephone
company for the purpose of showing the
skill OF the workmen, and the methods
of installing parts and demonstrate the
simplicity OF construction and accessible
ity of parts of the instrument.
The thing to praise in an aeroplane
should be slowness The problem OF
flight will not be solved so long as high
forward velocity is the onlV means Of
maintaining position in the air. Until
we can go slow or fast at pleasure, flying
will remain nothing more nor less than a
sport with very limited utility for mill
tary purposes.
Paris was recently the scene OF an en-
durance march of a peculiar kind. Only
drummers attached to the military station
at Paris were permitted to take part. The
route selected was ''circle around Paris,
q distance of 234 miles. The conditions
were that along the whole route each
participant must beat the drum continu-
ousIy in "march time" Only one of all
those who entered covered the distance
and filled the conditions. He drummed
around Paris in six hours and five mill
utes. II
One OF the curious things that men OF
science have discovered in their innnmer-
able efforts to measure and map the earth |
with the least possible error is that there
are places where the direction of plumb
line is not vertical. Irregularities Of dem
sity in the crust of the globe may produce
this phenomena. A remarkable instance
has been found in the island OF Porto
Rico, where the deviation from the vertI'
cal is SO great that in mapping the island
the northern and southern coast lines, as
shown on the old maps had each to be
moved inward half mile.
A Washington scientist recently con-
Quoted series Of experiments on mental
fatigue" and:his conclusions throw doubt
on the old theory that the mind loses lts
power to work as q rubber ball loses its |
power to bound and that sleep charges
the mind with energy. On the contrary, |
this investigator finds that the degree OF
inability caused by mental work is very
much less than has been supposed, ana
be questions whether the results obtain
cd by investigators who have sought TO
measure mental fatigue in school chill
dren were not due to the use OF methods
which did not measure the inability, put
did measure the distaste for mental effort. !
II