Parisian Letter.

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XI, Issue 1104, 10 December 1892, Page 3

Parisian Letter.

{From our Own Correspondent.') Paris. October 15, 1892. SCIENTIFIC NOTES, A SUPERIOR LIGHT. A German inventor is said to have derised a means of prodncinsr a light superior m strpngtb to either oil or electricity. It is by means of air driven through pumice stone, tha latter being impregnated with benzine. The benzine gas thus obtained is then carried through a fine magnesium powder, and proceeds upwards through a pipe to be consumed m a small flame of a claimed 400,000 candle power. The apparatus for pro <^e,ing this lieht consists of a blast engine for drivinor the air through the pumice, and a nurr her of otlpr accesso ries, all of which take up but a small space, and which ar? enclosed m a glass case for protection agflinst fhe elements, as the light i* specially designed for coast illumination. INOCULATION OF DOGS. A dog ie refractory to the inornlation of the tuberculosis of birds, but qu'ckly succumbs to that of mankind. Hence Mm. Charles Hichet'«T>d Herioourt have employed the virus of bird tuberculosis to vaccinate the dog against hnnmn tuberculosis. The result of their experiment is to r rove that after inoculation by bird tuberculosis a dog becomes refractory to human tuberculosis. Two groups of four dogs each were submitted to the test, one group being vaccinated with the rims of birds, the other left alone. AH the eight were a'terwar'a inoculated with the same virus of huffan tuberculosis, and whi'e the vaccinated dogs withstood it the others perished under it on the eighth day. Mm Richet and Ifericourt have further discovered that the infecting power of the virus of bird tubprculosis can be increased m an extraordinary mnnner, and made to kill dogs very quickly, but preMrainary vaccination preserves the animal against it. VARIETIES. AN FXTR« ORDINARY CLOCK. A masterpiece of the Black Forest cock manufacture has just been completed by Theodore Weisser, of Vohrenback, who, it is said, is a kinsma^ of the hereditary clockmaking family of that name, whose representatives are to be found m many of the Black Forest villages. This marvellous piece of work is three metres high and two metres broal. It tells the seconds, minutes, hours, days of the week, days of the month, date of the year, and the le«p years. On nine different plates it records the time rt Greenwich. Shanghai, Calcutta, St Petersburg, Berlin, Madeira, Montreal, Melbourne and San Francisco. The clock shows m turn the four seasons, the twelve si»ns of the zodiac, and the four ages of man — 'babe, youth adult and greybeard.' Each quarter of en hour is struck ly two angels. At eight o'clock m the even'n? a sacristan rings the ' Abendgocke,' upon which a maiden appears at prayer m a little electrically lighted chapel, and the mechanical flate work ("which is brought to such perfection at Villengen) plays tne • Aye Maria.' At 12 o'clock on New Year's Eve two trumpeters appear and blow m the new year. The Birth of Christy the visit of « the Three Kings,' Fa3ter Day. and Whitsunday are each m turn notified and illustrated by Herr Weisser's clock. Every d ay, »t noon, a cock crows three times. During the month of May the cuckoo sings, and the thrush m June. At sunrise the flntework plays ' Die sonn exwacht,' and at full moon it plays, 'Guter Mond <3n gehafc so still.' Ib is said that the clock has been sold for 16,000 marks and is going to England. As the clock is adorned with a figure of Britannia, we suppose, says the ' Echo,' that the artistmechanic must have intended it for the English market, unless he added this figure after the clock was sold.

A BALLOON TRIP, M. Mallet, a young nerouftut of great enterprise, is planning a bel'oon trip which, if successful, will introduce an enUn]y new feature in<o ballooning, He proposes to undertake a journey which shall exceed m length any previous aeionautic voyages, ns ho hopes to traverse the whole of Eastern France, the entire German Empir.% and to land safa and sound and well on the eastprn side of the Russian frontier. In order to accomplish thu> somewhat gigantic t«sk he is constructing an ex»r?mely ' bandy ' baboon of only nine hundred cubic meres, and intends to convey only himself and one companion. The silk is sown together m sections on a new plan, which virtually removes all danger from tearing. M, Mallet will not wast<> the carrying properties of hi 9 air ship by ascending to a great, altitu le, but will remain within about 500 yards of the earth. He hopes to obtain so complete a mastery over his balloon thtt if by any unforseeh circumstances he should finl himself with an insufficiency of pa?, he will be able to descend close to a town possessing gasworks m order to replenish bis stock, and then to continue his trip. MICOGRAPHY. U Eclair an independent morning paper has recently opened a competition of micrography, for which a number of specimens w»-re sent m, an^ prizes awarded to some eigi t or ten, the piincipal one, » eo'd medal, hav : ng been given to M. Caille, of Paris, who, on a single postal card, wrote upwards of two pages of the Eclair m typographical form, which fine as the writing was, could be read with the naked eye.