SCIENCE NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 204, 22 May 1908, Page 9

SCIENCE NOTES.

PRIMITIVE MAN AS ARTIST, PREHISTORIC PAINTINGS FOUND IN ' FRANCE. . iA find of great archaeological interest, consisting of son:o forty sketches by prehistoric ■ man, has been made, according to the " Journal des Debats," by I'.l, Bene Jeanncl in a cavo at Louhens, in Ariegc. The cave is known as tho Portel Grotto, or by the older liamo of tho Crampagna Grotto, and was investigated by Noulet, who found somo quaternary remains and human hones. Tho right portion of the cavo is damp, and consists of stalagmites, but tho left is'smooth and dry,. and on theso tho majority of tho pictures havo been discovered. They represent men and animals, coloured in black or red, and all oxcopt ono arc monochromes. Of tho two human sketches, tho ono represents a. markedly dolichocephalic type, 'with retreating forehead and a small facial anglo; tho other is drawn in a striking simian poso, with a rounded back and with "his arms pen.dant in front. This is said to bo. tho only instance of paintings of man found in a prehistoric cave. The animals represented are bison, boars, and horses. Thero is a boar i,vmg crouched, but drawn in good proportion, lhcre 13 an excellent studv, however, of tho tore-quarters of a horse, sketched in black, m tho deepest recess of tho cave. Unfortunately, a largo number of the sketches havo been injured by tho damp.

THE WORLD TO DIE OF THIRST. FINAL STRUGGLE IN VAST SAHARAS. Dr. Porcival Lovtoll, tho American scientist, has discovered how lifo will finally perish as far n.s our planet is concerned. Long study of the planet Mars through tho giant telescopes of the Lowell Ohesrvatory at Flagstaff, Arizona; has imprinted in Dr. Lowell's mind a vivid picturo, oi the last great strugglo to live, which will one day take place on tho earth. All nature will bo swallowed up by tho ever-spreading desert, he says in tho April "Century Magazine." There will bo no seas. The water drawn up into clouds, "will for a time spread a cooling snadow as it floats, around. Then it will disappear. Man, unsheltered from tho. fierce rays of the sun, scorched by tho burning sands, will become in his strugglo to'extract a .bare, thirsty subsistence from'the parched a big living brain and nothing more. . Turning to Mars," says Dr. Lowell/" wo find what is but in its infancy in 1 tho earth there in full control.. Five-eighths of it all aro now an arid waste, "unrelieved from sterility by- surfaco moisturo or covoring. Bare , itself, it is pitilessly held up to a brazen sun, unprotected' by any shield or cloud. To this condition ■ thG earth must come. .With, steady - if. stealthy strido, Saharas, as we have seen, aro even now possessing themselves of its surface. The end is doubtless yet far off, but it is as fatalistically sure as that to-morrow's sun will rise. Mars' surfaco is now all land. -Its forms of lifo must havo reachod that piont of pinching poverty whero brain is needed to survive at all."' ■' ' • .

"Thirst," he concludes, "tho thirst of tho desert, comes to us as wo realiso. tho situation,- parching our throat a' 3" wo think of a thirst impossiblo.of quenching except-in the far-off and- by nature unattainable polar snows." ; MAN WATCHES HIS LEG; CUT OFF.. An extraordinary operation, was described at thp.innuest at Lambeth oil March 27 on the body of John Davies, a furniture dealer. Davies slipped while descending from a van, and so injured his left shin that it was decidod to amputate tho leg from' tho thigh. •"No anaesthetic was used," Dr. Tanner told the coroner, " but Dr. Rowlands, of Guy's Hospital, injected a preparation which deadened all feeling.. Stobaino was injected into the spinal cord, which produced perfect deadness. in .both limbs; - Davies simply sat and, watched it, and never- said ' Oh.!' " ' "How long did it take,it-o : produco local, insensibility ?" • asked' the • coroner. '' About fivb or six jninutes,",. the doctor roplied, "and the -operation' took about three-quar-ters of an hour." . • -y ' Internal complications- set in, however, it was stated, and Davies died from exhaustion. A - 'v.erdiot of i'-'Doatlr from natural causes " was. returned;

"The percentage of deaths under anaesthetics is about one in 10,000,-" said a doctor at an inquest at Marylcbono • recently. VISION IN MAN AND .ANIMAL?. Dr. Alexander Scliaefer lias been investigating tho vision of many, animal species, and has found that tho size of tho eyeball is tho principal factor of . acntcness of visioii.' : Tho bovine specios has the sharp'est sight. The second place is occupied by . man and tho horse, which have nearly equal visual powers, the third by tho sheep;- Small, and especially small-eyed animals, whether mammals, birds, amphibia, or'reptiles, have very poor sight. Owls- and buzzards aro the only birds that possess great a.cuteness of vision. The low positions-in tho scalo occupied by dogs, cats, bats, and many fishes," which feed upon living prey, is contrary to. all expectation. In tho caso of dogs and certain fishes, lack of sharpness of.,vision is due to tho ■ great size of tho retinal (the sensitive screen at the back ,of. the' eye) oleinents. It has long been known that dogs have such indistinct vision that as <a rule a. dog is not able to rccognise his master by sight alono. —-"Scibnc'e Sittings." ' ' " . CURE OF LEPROSY'. After years of -work, based on chemical and physiological investigations, and eventually transferred from experimental practice on animals to tho servico of mail', Dr. Deycko, the late Director of the Miliiarv School of Practical Medicine at Constantinople, has felt sufficiently confident regarding his npw treatment to recommend its use in cases of leprosy. In tho first -'instance, nh attempt was made to;,grow the microbo found .in leprosy outsido the body, but this proved impossible, another, microbe b'oinnf obtained when tho attempts .were made. This was isolated, and on its composition beinc; analysed it was found that, tho substance" which caused the body to react with ulcers, boils, and what not, giving rise to tho leprous condition, was carried in an anparently harmless; fat extracted from the microbo and called nastin. It may bo taken as a genoral rule that a microbo dies if deprived of its fat, and it was discovered that nastinj though a fat itself, caused the disappearance of fat from tho microbes. It was not always successful, and further investigation showed that it was only when the white corpuscles of Iho blood had been broken down,- and when benzene was also .present,-that nastin produced its ; result. It .was at this stage that light shone on the obscurity of tho method. The microbes in tho bodv readily take, up .the fat that is peculiar to them, nastin. They appear unable, to resist it, oven though it is charged with a product of benzene, and as a result of taking up tho benzene product they lose their own fat, and tlite fat tlioy absorb, and die. Dr. Deycko held out hopes, in a lecture at tho London School of Tropica) Medicine, that it may be. possible to apply tho samo method, with modifications, to tho treatment of consumption.

TYPHOID FEVER AND ITS CAUSES. Typhoid is now known to spring from a variety' of sources, and Dr. Seaton doubts whether ten per'cent, of cases can be attributed to infected drinking water. Polluted food seems to bo a common cause, and cases of doubtful origin have suggested that other germs besides the so-called typuoid bacilli may produce the disease. 11, is authoritatively announced in Sheffield that among the steal rail orders just placed is ono which has been secured by Dnraiau, Loni* ' and Co., for 20,000 tons for'the liuonns Ayres and Rosario Railway. The London mid Sn'uUiAVcslern Railway Company has placed "500 lons with Guest, Keen and Ncttlefolds, and W order for 2000.tons for tho Great North of Ireland' Railway has boon (jircu to'tho'English .iriCaiw Process Company. •-