Amador ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Calif.) 1875-19??, 1910-01-14

Freezing with carbon dioXide is a
novel curative process, the exact value
of which is not yet known. When the
compressed gas is allowed to escape
from cylinder some of it condenses as
snow, and this is rammed into tube of
metal or vucanite. forming solid
round or square rod. With piece of
lint one end Of the rod may be held in
the hand, while the other end may be
pared to any shape With knife. On
applying the free end to the skin, the
surface is at once frozen by the intense
cold, and striking effects follow the
usual application of so to 90 seconds.
Little or no pain is felt. Thawing takes
place promptly. and swelling follows in
two or three minutes, while blister
often appears within an hour So far
the freezing mas been applied with good
in such skin affections as birth
marks. warts and some moles.
Recent evidence tends to show that The
soil has steriizing as we'll as the
fcrtilizng bacteria. At the Rothamsted
Experimental Strtion in England, Drs.
E. l. Russell and Fl. 3. Hutchinson
have partially sterilized soil by heating
to about 200 deg. F., or treating with a
volatile antiseptc like carbon disul-
phide, and have found that productive
ness becomes greater for time through
increased production of ammonia, que to
rapid increase of bacteria. This remark
able effect of incomplete sterilization is
attributed to a destruction of competing
organisms. The discovery of some
means OF suppressing the undesirable
soil organisms would appear 10 be an
important advance, and this problem is
now receiving attention.
The natural food of the New Zealand
kea i, fruits, roots, honey, worms and
insects, and the strange stories Of sheep
Killing by this parrot have been serious
ly doubted. G. K. Mariner, curator
of the museum at Wanganu, has found
the bird convicted by the most positive
evidence. With horrible cruelty this
extraordinary bird tears out the Kidneys
os its victim while clinging to the only
footlold il can keep during the tortured
struggles, and sheep-owners
lose five per cent of their focks yearly.
A new region of wonders, quite I'M
known to our unaided perceptions, has
been opened up by a combination Of the
ultramcroscope and the acknowledgement.
The former is an ordinary microscope
using powerful ray of light from one
Side, and, while it does not accurately
reveal sizes and shapes, organisms and
other solid PARTICLES far too small to be
even detected by ordinary observation
are made TO appear as bright points on a
dark background and their position and
are clearly shown. With
great care and patience, DR.. Comandon,
a French investigator, has photographed
upon moving films both microscopic and
scenes, adapting for each
the illumination of an intense pencil of
light from an electric arc. In the cine
the films throw upon screen
moving pictures and the objects thus
reproduced may be magnitied as much as
10, eco dameters, ar enlargement that
would make flea as big as six story
house if so immense q creature could be
shown entire. The movements, in the
blood, of corpuscles and disease germs
are among the instructive views that can
be brought out. One set of moving
pictures shows the blood Of mouse in
fected with a trypanosOn1e similar to
that of sleeping sickness, and The or
1880 to l-250 cf an
inch long-appear as swift-moving giant
a foot or mere in length In
another series Of pictures, a tadpole's
tail is a mass Of cells trayeIsed by a
river Of blood, which whirs the oval
blood corpuscies along like pebbles in a
torrent
Portland cement has been produced
from the waste Stag Of furnaces,
and a new process-now being tested in
Liverpool makes another useful build
ing material by adding send and suplhaie
Of soda, sometimes with q little lime TO
convert the Stag into glass, With or
without inclosed wire, this glass may
be cast or rolled into artificial states,
paving blocks, building blocks, bricks
slabs or tiles. Much is expected from
the Stag roofing slate which costs less
than half as much as the snaiural slate