The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-11-21
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

Warm Bath Stimulation of Plants-Auto-
matte Gates for Crossings-Safe Tele-
phoning Under Power Wires-Science
in an Old Notion-The Gas-Mantle Prob
lem-Anti- Cancer Inoculation-.S Skin Dis
ease from Work-Iron Without Blast
The warm bath is a new forcing process by
which German florists and horticulturists are
seeking flowers and fruits at unnatural seasons.
AS described by Hans Molisch, it consists in
soaking cut branches or rooted plants in water
at $50 to more than 1902 Fair. for nine to twelve
hours, and then cultivating in the usual way.
The method seems to be especially suitable to
the hazel, lilac, dogwood, gooseberry, black
alder, larch, horse chestnut, willow, and other
trees and shrubs. The top of rooted lilac was
immersed twelve hours at $50 to 9So, then placed
in moderately warm forcing house, and in forty
days was in full leaf and flower, while in the
same house the buds of lilac tnat had not had
the warm bath were just beginning to open.
Other results have been even more striking. The
applications vary in temperature for different
plants, while some plants are best treated just
after the leaves fall in autumn and others little
later, but the warm bath near the end of the
winter rest may even retard growth.
"a
An automatic gate is being tested on Swiss
electric road. As car approaches the grade
crossing, the trolley bow makes contact with a
wire running parallel to the main trolley line,
and thus energies a motor that in twenty Sec
onds lowers a gate across the highway on each
side of the railroad, and at the same time an
electric bell Is rung and two lamps are lighted.
A counterweight raises the gates after the car
has passed.
A German portable telephone is mounted in a
rain-proof case, provided with folding tripod
of light steel tubes. which make ground connec-
ton, while a conductor in long ash pole in six
sections is used to make connection with the
overhead wire. Safety is ensured, even when
the line poles carry lO,OOO-volt wires.
az
The popular idea that the burning of sugar has
an important effect in disinfectiDg sick-rooms
has been shown by Prof. Trilbert, of the Pasteur
Institute at Paris. to have scientific basis, al
though physicians have hitherto regarded the
practice as perfectly useless but harmless
superstition. He has demonstrated that pro-
duct of the combustion is formic acetylene-
hydrogen, one of the most powerful of gaseous
antiseptics. He burned about 80 grains of sugar
in bell-glass holding ten quarts, and bacilli of
typhus, tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox. etc.,
exposed in open tubes in the vapor produced
were all dead within half an hour. In closed
vessel the offensive odor of rotten eggs putrid
meat was Immediately destroyed by burning a
little sugar.
The incandescent gas mantle has been great
puzzle to physicists. In the experiments of fif-
teen or twenty years ago, it appeared that pure
thoria would give only one candle-power of
light per cubic foot of gas but that the presence
of one per cent. of ceria increased this to 20 or
% candle-power, while with ten per cent. of
ceria in the mantle only three candle-power
would be realized. Numerous theories have
been suggested to account for these strange
facts. The truth has become known at last,
states Prof. Vivian B. Lewes, and the explana-
ton is that ceria has an enormous power of heat
radiation and thoria very little, and if ceria is
raised to the proper temperature of 1902 1902
G. the maximum lighting effect is obtained.
This temperature cannot be reached If the ceria
is much over one per cent.
sfs
Vaccination with serum is pronounced by
DR.. Doyen, French experimenter, to be the
only means'yet available for preventing cancer.
An anti-infectious condition is established by
progressive NEGOTIATIONS with the toxines and
neoformans), and this stimulates the phaeo-
cytes, or white blood corpuscles, to resist and
absorb the live cells of malignant tissue. Cures
are claimed in cases really considered desperate.
a.
Occupation dermatitis, or skin inflammation
attending certain kinds of work. has been inves-
tigated at the Royal Infrmary, Edinburgh, by
DIR. F. Gardiner, and in the eighteen months
ending with June. 1908, not less than 102 cases in
males came under observation and IS in females.
The affection seems to be most common in early
life and in warm weather. Laborers. miners,
painters, joiners and rubber workers were most
affected among males. and housewives, laun-
dresses and rubber workers among females 1t
was not always easy to trace the direct cause.
So far as could be determined, however, the irri
tation was due to soap and washing materials,
moisture and mud, hot substances, varnishes
and paints, alkalies and acids, naphtha, sugar,
-four and paraffin, in this order of frequency.
Ointments, well rubbed in, had increased the
trouble in many cases. The arms, hands and
face are most often affected, but in II cases the
whole body was irritated. AS a rule, there was
no general i'll health. though such disturbances
as anaemia, dyspepsia, influenza and rheumatism
were noted in rs cases.
AZ
For his iron reduction without blast furnace
or fusion. j. T. Jones, of Iron Mountain, Mich,
claims especial economy and effectiveness with
low grade ores. A slightly inclined cylinder
feet in diameter and 100 feet long is rotated on
bearing wheels, and the ore fed in at the upper
end slowly moves to the lower end, where gas
from special producer gives powerful reduc-
ing flame, with temperature of l47O0 Fair, in
which all oxides are reduced. The hot gas
energies from the upper end of the cylinder as
carbon dioxide at 4O0o. 1t is stated that 400
pounds of fuel fed to the producer does the
work of 1000 pounds of coke in the blast furnace,
and yields a ton of good iron.