SCIENTIFIC NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 4124, 22 September 1883, Page 6 (Supplement)

SCIENTIFIC NOTES.

The Volta prize of £1,200 will be awarded by the Academy of Sciences, Paris, .in December, ISS7, under the decree of June 11, ISS2, for the discovery or invention of whatever shall render electricity applicable economically toone of the following objects : Heat, light, chemical action, mechanical fores?, tho transmission of messages, or the treatment of sick persons.

A man who weighs 150 pounds on the earth, if transported to 3 upiter, would shake tho ground with a ponderous tread of 45,000 pounds, or 22<, tons. A nut falling from a bough would crash through him like a Minie-ball. Water woidd weigh liftcen times as much as quicksilver. A moderate wave would shiver to atoms the strongest ironclad.

A non-conductor of electricity has yet t° be found, for all substances hitherto discovered are conductors of the force under Certain known conditions, but those which oiler a great resistance to it servo the purpose of non-conductors in practice, although they may all be either classed as good or bad conductors. The best conductor known as yet is silver. Tho worst conductor is paraffine.

A gentleman in Manchester claims to have succeeded in applying orange peel to a very useful purpose. Orange peel dried in or on an oven until all the moisture has been expelled becomes readily inflammable, and serves admirably for lighting fires or for resuscitating them when they have nearly gone out. Thoroughly dried orange peol will keep for along time, and might be collected when the fruit is in season and stored for winter use.

An interesting discovery has been made in Paraguay of a tribe of Indians with tails. An Argentine domiciled in the Argentine Missions has a yerba establishment in the Paraguayan Missions, in a district called Tacura Tuyu. While collecting the yerba in the yerba woods, his mules were attacked by some Guayacuyos Indians, who fled after killing several mules. The muleteers pursued, firing on the Indians, one of whom, a l)oy about eight years old, was captured. This boy was brought to Posedas, where Xkm Francesco Golcochoa, the Argentine referred to, lives, and excited much curiosity, owing to his having a tail six to eight inches long. The boy, who has been photographed by sonic Germans, is, it is stated, very ugly ; but his body is not covered with hair. A brother of tho boy, at present in the possession of Colonel Rudeciudo Roca, has also a tail ; and all the tribe are said to bo similarly adorned.

A French paper gives an account of some " curious" experiments which Signor Canestrini has been making on insects. Ho has cut off the heads of a number of flics, ants, grasshoppers, and butterflies, and he lias observe:! that decapitated insects retain their sensibility for a very long time. Flies seem to regard the operation as the most natural thing in the world. They calmly rubbed their bodies with thoir legs, and generally behaved a3 if nothing unusual had happened. Butterflies continued to fly for eighteen days after they had lost their heads, and grasshoppers had still a kick in them thirteen days after being similarly ill-treated. ScalopondriED showed contractile movements both in the trunk and in the head eight days after tho severance had been effected. Cruel experiments of this sort aro generally defended on tho ground that they are, or may be, of service to humanity'; but one quite fails to see.tho raison d'etre- of X'rGfessor Canastrini's operations. The effect of decapitation on the human subject is well known ; and the professor may go on decapitating insects till doomsday without contributing "anything towards modifying its unpleasant consequences.