SCIENCE NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 36, 6 November 1907, Page 11

SCIENCE NOTES.

SPEECH OF ANIMALS. Professor R. L. Garner, who for several years has spent tho greater part of his timo in the. forests of Africa, studying the language of monkeys and other animals, replies to.the published statements of Professor W. T. Hornaday that wild animals in the junglo very rarely communicate with one another by vocal sounds, they- having learned that "silence promotes peace and long life." Professor Garner admits that • wild animals are habitually moro taciturn than domesticated 1 ones, as arc also the wild tribes of human beifigs. This ho attributes to lack of'social intimacies and nomadic habits. But he points out that nioroly. going hunting and camping in the forest with-firo, and- noise gives; no opportunity for the methodic study of its',denizens.; ■ It is necessary to live among .them in a stato of . nature for an indefinite time.' Contradicting Professor Hornadayi Garnor denies-that silence is an important element of safety in wild animal life. The carnivorous, : the only natural enemies which other animals have any-cause to fear through the sound of their voices,' depend almost, wholly -upon the sense of smell in -pursuing their game, overy species having its peculiar odour. Also the carnivores generally hunt at night, seizing tho prey while- asleep. . The animals which have the fewest reasons to fear betrayal by their voices are by* nature' the most silent ones. Garnor tells of his personal experience during thd three years' residence in the junglo, how the chimpanzoo frequently breaks the silence of the forest by answering the cries of, various other animals. Tho gorilla is less loquacious; but thero are times when he ignores all danger of betrayal and gives vent "to a doluge of speech.'' Other monkey'spe- - oies-are persistent talkers, and can be heard at almost Sny hour. The trumpeting of the elephant is' common at night and the bellowing of. the-hippopotamus by day and night. The antelopes cry at night when the leopard is on the hunt for 'them, the latter also grunting. . . A FIGHT TO THE . DEATH. visitor to'tho Philippine Islands thus describes, in-"Chums," a raro and exciting spectacle he witnessed while staying there— a' fight to^tho.-..death between two camels. One of; the camels, ho said, was an Indian bull; of great agility, the other a powerful South Australian draught, bull. •' After some preliminary skirmishing the Australian came] planted his legs firmly and waited for the onslaught of the moro nimble Indian animal. With a spring - of. trcmondous swiftness tho Indian dashed forward, and, seizing the,.'rightforeleg- of his .antagonist in its jawp,,,endeavoured: to, throw him to the ground. .But the ihig Australian was evidently familiar with its manoeuvre, for like at flash; he dropped., to his knees and seized the .{lndian ;bytho withers, throwing him to earth- and tearing away the , flesli. After that.,se big fellow.bounded to his feet, and threw-himself on to the smaller animal. The latter, however, was too nimble to be caught. Evading the attack, he caught the Australian-by the heel, and threw him v/ith a mighty thud on his back on the ground. , Then he tried to pin" the fallen camel to the earth, buttho, Australian, knowing, that once pinned down'he would never rise again, fought, frenziedly with teeth and legs ana re- ! 'covered his feot v Swift and active as the Indian camel - was,' he could not' escape seyeral severe', bites,- though ho left-.terrible marks, oh .the body of his enemy. At times the combatants ,were barely visible amid 'the . clouds "of dust they threw up. In the end weight'and endurance proved superior . to .'skill 'and agility, as is often the case in .warfare. .' A .tremendous charge of the big camel hurled the-Indian to the earth, and before he could recover,-the attacker descended on him with terrific force, crushing the life out; of.him. But,, as; the old Latin author ex-presses-it, it was a : "Pyrrhic victory," thatis,toisay, the oonqueror_suffered;as;,severely as' the conquered.The big.rjpftirjfil, pin fact,, was' so' torn ; -,and ; battered that;it had to be Bliot. Needless to , say,' .we: watched this battle of giants from a safe distance. Any human being who'got mixed up with 'a camel fight, would be. speedily reduced to pulp.., . . LAST OF STONE AGE MAN. The visitor to Tasmania can have an experience {that is novel —he can call on the fast.'-of the'native race of the land. -She is Trucaninni, and she holds receptions in a glass;case in : the, National Museum. There is only .the; skeleton left, but judging from that I she .was a well-organised little woman of about'four feet in height. The Tasmanian aborigine.was a clean sort of person, moving ' every day,- so as :not to have the dirt or ashes of yesterday' in his camp.; The mode was uncut haiivfor men, shaven; heads for women.,... Both wore at times; a > necklace, arid; also on- occasions tied a strip . ,of fur around the calves of their legs. , Thoy. seemed toget .along very well with this, even' though the winters were cold. When Trucaninni had disappeared (she died aged 70,-in 18,76) the experts discovered that th-jso Tasmanian aborigines, /were probably the world's only specimens-of the people of tho stone age. . .. - - Animals commit'suicide ? ' . It, has often been alleged that animals at times commit suicide, and their suspicious bqhaviour when captured is cited as evidence of this,statement. Experiments have proved, the fallacy of this view, however, notably those carried out some years ago by Dr. E. Ray. Lankester, and Professor Bourne, of Madras.. . Scorpions were confined in an extremely, hot place, from which escape was impossible,: aridlthbir frantic gymnastics wore carefully:studied. • As in the case of the tortured rattlesnake biting his own body, the action of.the.scorpion in an apparent attempt to: nut .'an end, to its sufferings by stinging itS ,head _was' purely'muscular, and Dr. Lankest'er comjjared the action to tlio biting the dust attributed to men who die in hand-to-hand struggles, or to the biting of their own hand or arm by children iii a paroxysm of anger. , . how insects "speak." ■ Are. insects dumb?; They aro, says Dr. Henry'McCook, writing in "Harper's Magazine,'.' if wo think of language as a vocal ■ medium .for, conveying thought and emotion, from-one individual to others. For insects have no true Toice, nor organs of speech, such as belong to "articulato spoaking men." They also lack the means of uttering the cries that characterise birds and brutes'. But if we take language as simply an understandable, medium for expressing omotions; insects are thus endowed. They express emotions by bodily gestures. And mimetic language, though far moro limited, is not less, intelligible than vocal speech. Indeed, argues our authority, a glance of the eye, a movement of tho hand, a shrug of the shoulder, a stamp of the foot, a toss of the head, may betray in man tho truo thought or feeling,, even whon spoken language is used to conceal it. ' A GREAT GERMAN SCIENTIST. Referring to the recently published biography of Helmholtz, • the great German scientist, the. "Guardian" says:—Hermann von Helmholtz was the greatest scientific mind of Gerniany, tho nearest approach to a Newton which the German race has produced. His life extended from 1821 j to 1894; and the period covored by his published researches— 1842 to 1894—was wholly comprisod within, and almost coincident with, the,age which wo call Victorian.' Intellectually this period is remarkable for the advances made in the study of natural science b) a host of workers, amoiig whom stand out such names as Faraday,' Diirwin," Pasteur, and Clerk-Maxwell. But, among all tho Victorian men of science, von Helmholtz is first in completeness of intellectual equipment and in tho wideness of his range. With the extensive learning characteristic of the Gorman scholar he combined a full share of that English quality of common senso which has generally restrained our own men of science from erecting a structure of .theory too hoavy for their foundation of fact. •■With Gorman learning and English common sense this wonderful man possessed a faculty for the logical and elegant presentation of scientific facts seldom oqualled except by French savants. There can bo no doubt that the true bent of von Helmholtz's mind was towards mathematical physics, but narrow means compelled him to approach pure scienco by. wa-" of the medical profession,

and thus it camo about that his earlior researches wore in physiology. Tho introduction pf moro rigorous methods into this scienoo was largoly duo to him, and ho checked the,tendency to burk the explanation of phonomcna by indiscriminate referonco to • the operation of "vital force." Tho groat sories of papers upon tlie correlation of natural forces and tho '"conservation of enorgy" was' the princip.il triumph of tho "early Victorian" poriod of his work. The subject engaged tho simultaneous and independent attention of sovoral workers in England and Germany. It is, perhaps, natural that the' Gorman biographer of von Helmholtz should seom to attach too little weight to';tho work of Joule,' of Manchester. Such apparent partiality is often duo to relative convenience of access. _ Thus on the Bubject of Ocean Wares, on which van Helmholtz and the late Sir Gabriel Stokes worked independently, we. find that English and Gorman writers respectively seldom quote the foreign worker. When von Helmholtz has treated a recondite subjcct the Gorman reader seldom cares to seek further in a foroign languago, and to trust in Stokes in-like manner becamo a habit with Cambridge men. Tho discovery of radium and of the partial break-up of some of the chemical atoms came aftor tho death of von Helmholtz, who therefore nover know of the ppwer of rejuvenescence which is apparently possessed by inorganic matter. As far back as 1881, however, he taught tho atomic nature of electricity, which is closoly bound up with tlieso recent discoveries. Similarly, though he did not live to seo wireless telegraphy, he inspired tho investigations of Hertz, whoso work on olectrio waves was Marconi's starting point. . LIVING "WITH BROKEN NECK. A rare and singular case is that of a young man named Larkin, who has the, distinction of living with a broken neck. In December, 1903, .Larkin, a house and carriago painter by trado, was at work, when ho accidentally fell some 10 or 15 feet, striking on his ho:«l in such a mannor that he broke three of the bones of his neck. A plaster cast was fitted ,enclosing the greater part of tho head (except the face), neck, and body, nearly to his/ waist. For several .months the. cast was frequently renewed. Then a fine steel fihme was fitted to take its place, which he is obliged to wear continually, night and day. Notwithstanding tho inconvenience and discomfort of the casing, he works at his tracb, and supports his family, consisting of a wife and two children. . NEW LIGHT. AIDS OCULISTS. The Acadomy of Scienco at Paris reports that Dr. Fortin, has discovered that the light from a mercury vapour lamp, passing through two sheets of blue glass and reflected into tho eye by a largo lens, reveals' the internal condition of the eye infinitely bettor than the ordinary white light. By placing a screen with a pin-hole between the light and the eye a magnified image of the vessels at the back of tho retina has been obtained; whereas hitherto thoy have boen almost in-: visible. The small veins, with a diameter of 2-1000ths of a millimeter (a millimeter is .03937 of an inch), are seen to distend with each heart beat, and it is possiblo to count tho blood corpuscles. THE NUMBER THIRTEEN. It is interesting to note the antiquity of' ■the prejudice against the l number 13 (writes William Mac Arthur, in "Scienco Sittings.") ■Before the beginning of the Christian Era it ■was the symbol of death; the gipsies' gospel gives the thirteenth card represented by. a skeleton with tho scythe. This lino of symbolism may also be traced in the thirteenth -letter of that sacred word of tho HebrewKabbalah, yod-he-vauhe, a word supposed never to 1 bo said by the Israelites themselves, and only by tho High Priest onco a year. Thirteen was the sacred number of tho Mexicans and of tho people of Yucatan—hero wore thirteen snake gods. In Norse mythology, at a banquet in tho Valhalla Laki, tiic god of ovil came and made himself the thirteenth guest, and so succeeded in his desiro to kill with an arrow of mistletoe, Balder, the god of peace. The meal from which Judas arose to meet his jJqijn},,,also,..accounts for,. much of the popular view. • The number 13; occupies among numerals a rank of singular character and : one deserving of study. ' , ..... - ITEMS OF INTEREST. : The death-plant of Java has flowers which continually give off a perfume so powariul as to. overcome, if inhaled for any luigth of time, a full-grown man, and which kills ill forms of insect,life that como under its influence. •.

The tailor wasp, when needing a piece if leaf to lino its nest-, always cuts its pattern in an exact, circle.- Theso wasps have often beon watched,- but have nover been known to mistako tho size, to cut the pattern over again, or 'to snoil a leaf.

■Paraguay has a'remarkable luminous larva of a kind of glow-worm ' which is locally, known by tho namo of the railway beetle, for it not only emits a strong red light both from its head and tail, but also a green light from successive points along each side of its body. Tho'female glPw-worni, being destitute ,rf wings, stands-in even greater need of special protection than the grub which slio so lesombles, and on this account possesses a more brilliant illumination. —"Country Life."

It.is thought that the old Caylloma .silver mines in Peru are probably situated at a greater elovation than any other considerable mines in the world. Their altitude varies between 14,000 and 17,000 feet. They were worked by the Spaniards in tho sixteenth ceiitury, and before that, it is believed, by the Ineas. An English company is now preparing a hydro-electric plant for tlicni. This plant will be situated at an altitudo of between 15,000 and 16,000 feet. It will derive its power from a waterfall on the Santiago River, and in dry season from Lako Huaillacho, ono of the sources of the Amazon. The power will be transmitted by cable about three miles. - At the highest mines the pressure of the atmosphere is only eight and one-half "pounds- a square inch, and water boils 24 degrees below the ordinary boiling point.—"Philadelphia Record."

Thoso who visjt the gardens of the Zoological Society, writes Mr. W. P. Pycraft in "Knowledge," may be lucky enough to witness tho ,disp)ay of that raro bird, tho kagn (Rliiiiochootus iubatus), of New Caledonia. This bird, a male, in moments of excitement, assumes the curiov.3 postures which, in its wild state, are reserved, for the edification of its it ate. When worked up to the correct pitch, so to speak, tho neck and body are raised to an almost vertical position, the wings are half- open and thrust forward, and the bead is bent so that tho beak 'rests upon, or rather is half buried tlie neck feathers. Then tho long, pendant crest is set on end so as'to form a wide, upstanding fan, ol great,beauty. The effect of this display is further heightened by the fact that the bird, as if unconscious of its charms, struts up and down with a curious mincing step, assumed only at this particular time. But tho performance is of short duration, r. few seconds only, though repeated encores may -sometimes bo secured.

Tho weapon of the swordfish probably served as the model for one of the earliest forms of tho sword. Many early swords, Particularly among tlio marine nations, were cuged with the teeth of sharks.

The largest structure oil tho earth when compared with the size of the builders is the ant-hill of Africa. Some of these mounds havo been observed fifteen feet high and nine feet in diameter. If a human habitation wore constructed on the same scale it would lie moro than seven miles high.

All birds have a systematic arrangement in depositing tlioir eggs in the nest, and there /.re very few species, if any, iii which some peculiarity is not to bo seen, if careful observation is made. Many birds so plainly and invariably show a tendency to a sot arrrangomont that their habit is generally known.

A distinguished German sciontist informs us that tho moon is covered all over with a thick layer of ice. The scientist, who has given twenty years to the study of his subject, thinks the moon never had an atmosphere, or, if it had, that the atmosphere vanished into space ages ago. There being no air, there cannot bo any liquid water. Without tho pressure of an atmosphere water would boil at Odeg. C.; at tho temperature of zero all the water on tho moon's surface would pass from tho liquid to :bo gaseous state. But the temperature must he much below Odeg. C. There being no atmosphere to hinder radiation, the absolute zero—273deg. C. below freezing [joint— must bo reached, and thus all thqf water on tho moon's surface converted into a layer of ;eo.