Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-19
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY

new form of sport that seems to have
scientific promise, and mountain eX-
plorers are not likely to neglect much
longer the aid offered by balloons In
making observations on difficdlt peaks.
In the Alps balloon journeys are al
ready common. A French aeronaut
was blown across the Maritime Alps
in a storm sixty or seventy years ago,
but the first planned mountain Voy-
age was made in October 1888, by Spell
terini, who crossed the Diablerets.
1860 feet high, in the Bernese Alps
Since then many of the Alps nave
been crossed most of the sdccessiul
ascents having been made, however,
from points within the mountains. IL
was not until November, 1905, ina!
Usuelli and Crespi, ascending from
Milan. passed over Mont Blanc Q6,tO0
feet) at an altitude of 22,300 feet and
landed near Aix-les-B -Bains, thus WIN
ming the prize offered by the Queen
Dowager Margherita of Italy Tor
complete balloon crossing of the h-gh
Alps. In the last two years several
notable trips have been made. ON
June 29, 1898, Victor de Beauclalr ana
two companions ascended from the
Eigergletscher station of the Jungf4 au
railway, and twenty hours later land
ed at Stressa on Lake Magsiore, atter
a passage over the most picturesque
part of the Alps, including seven OF
eight peaks more than $4,000 feet hlsh.
A later mountain flight covered more
than $40 miles.
The uniform mapping of the world
by the leading countries was proposed
by Professor Albrecht Penck at the
fifth international geographical con-
gress, held at Bern, In 1891. The pan
has been much discussed, and Ger
many, France, England and the United
States have made experiments toward
CARRYING it out. 1t was suggested that
the scale should be 1 to 100000 or
about 16 miles to the inch, the sep
arate sheets to be bounded by me-
ridians and parallels.
The new Paragraph of T. Shida re-
cords the minute and rapid oscillations
of atmospheric pressure by photogra-
phy. Records for Toxic show that vary
ing oscillations in detail, and 1t is be-
leved that such observations VIII In
time explain the continual pulsation
of the ground.
The ultramcroscope, with which
many experiments have been made IN
the last few years, shows the presence
of minute objects by converting item
into luminous points against dark
background, just as the dancing or
floating particles of dust in the air OF
a darkened room are made visible
when we look across ray of light
entering the room. The new ins,ru-
ment is simply an ordinary miro
scope looking through an oblIque beam
of bright light that strikes only the
tiny specks that are to be observed.
The objects thus illuminated stand out
in the genreal obscurity about them
and are distinguishable when less than
one two-millionth of an inch in dame
ter, or fifty times smaller than can
be studied by ordinary microscopy.
The registering of the life history OF
microbes among the red and white cor
puscles of the blood was accomplished
by DR.. Comandon by combining the
ultramicroscope with the moving pic
ture machine. The pictures were taken
at the rate of thirty-two second, and
when the bacteria and blood cells in
motion and action were shown TO the
Paris Academy of Sciences, the views
were moved along at the rate OF 800
a minute, the objects being magnihed
from 10000 to 10000 diameters. This
scene of microbes at war" is the first
of many which may be expected to give
us a better idea of the invisible living
world around us.
A new Danish material for bricks
is what is known in Jutland as
''moler," a foliated diatomaceous earth
existing in large deposits, but hitherto
of no use. 1t was tried at first as an
ingredient of sand lime bricks, but