SCIENCE NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 12871, 21 July 1906, Page 10

SCIENCE NOTES.

A novel use of compressed air is made by some railway companies in the Southern States of America (says the ‘ Kail way News *), When the loads of cotton for export are being taken to the coast, there is always some danger of such highly inflammable material becoming damaged through sparks from locomotives. To prevent tlus, the locomotive boilers are filled with compressed air. A train load of several thousand bales of cotton can be hauled by these locomotives at a rate of twelve pules an hour, although no fire whatever K used in working them. An improved smelling furnace recently installed. in a foundry in Canada uses coal instead of coke, at about one-half the cost and when smelting tho sulphide ores the sulphur is used in combust ion, mal-mg a still further reduction in expenses. It is stated that this furnace does, not require crushing and roasting of the ores, which means a very considerable saving. The following description of the furnace has been published : —“ The new furnace is a double one, placed side by side, having connection through the bottoms. Fuel is placed with the charge only in the first. The top of the first is scaled, that of the second is left open. Air is admitted through a doable row of pipes, instead of a single row. Tho pipes are placed in the middle of the furnace, instead of at the bottom, for the purpose of obtaining a perfect combustion. The gases generated bv the first pass in flames through the bottom of the first into the second, where there is no fuel, but where, nevertheless, the experiment has shown that heat to lie fax fiercer than in the first, and where two to five charges are minced while one is behm put through the first, according to the amount of sulphur, etc., in the ore used.” * While the " Sons of David ” or “ New Israelites ” are certain that the world is just about to be buret up, and are hurrying to reach the only spot which their oracles say will he spared, Dr T. C. Chamberlain, professor of geology at the University of Chicago, announces that the world will be habitable lor 100,000,000 years to oome. Practically, as far as human life is concerned, the world is just beginning, according to this geologian. An important discovery has recently been made in connection with food. The most nutritious and least expensive is currant bread. The King’s physician recommends it, and would like to see it on the table at every meal. Currant bread should be cut ur thin slices to obtain the full nutriment and flavor. Mr J. Procht describes same experiences with radium which tend to show the enormous force of the emitted gaseous products when they are confined to a limatcd space. He reports that a small glass tube with vraUs o.smm. thick, containing 25 milligrammes of purest radium bromide, exploded after eleven months’ me with a bud report.. Three minutes before the explosion it bad been removed from a bajth of liquid air and placed on a wooden l able ‘ -J? k** >een Trse d several times before. The force of the explosion was such that the glass was shivered into almost microscopic particles, which were strewn all over the room, the radium being seen pa the dark life© a starry sky. f rhe pressure m the bubo must have been at least 20 atmospheres, and was no doubt due to the evolution of gaseous decomposition products of radium. The forests and jungles of Yucatan are said to be tilled with succulent vegetables odorous herbs, and wild fruits that are quite unknown to the outer world. It i 3 claimed (says a correspondent 0 f ‘Globe’) that half a score of wild fruits offering far better results than did the wild almond the progenitor of the peach, could camly be obtained. In Yucatan the maiza flourishes m profusion. There ar6 sit varieties of it, and the Maya Indian speaks i of it reverently as it he ‘'Grace of God ” ' Among the six kinds referral to is one ' which actually matures within sixty days « of planting. It is so short that the natives ’ have a saying that the oock can pick the < flowers off it without stepping off the ! ground Tbe macol box is a somewhat, re- 5 markable running vine. It produce* a 1 teberous root of great dWtifc . Whole families, in fact, live upon these ’ tubers for months. In May the 1 Shoots come up, and by November the ! tubers are ready for harvesting. Thev arc ‘ as large as a very big pitasto, and' are , purplish in color. It is cooked before 1 beong eaten. The smallest of the tub;*a ' are left in the ground at harvesting time* j ind these ensure the next annual supply’ ] Another variety of maeal yields only one 1 3r two tubers to each plant, but they arc : of an immense size. Some of the sped ? mens are so large that four of them will ‘ 5U a basket. The flesh of the tuber is white, and aippears to consist of pure l j 'larch. An enormous quantity is obtained from an acre. Another running plant produces tubers weighing about three pounds laeh. They axe eaten roasted, boiled, and raw. It gives immense yields to the acre, f tnd is said to be one of the most heavily t propping tuberous plants in the world. c

Investigations show, says the latest report of the Swedish Odootological Society, wiat lo -er cent, of the ancient AngloSaxons, 24 per cent, of the ancient Britons, and 41 per cent, of the ancient Egyptians suffered from decayed teeth. Among the modem notions Sweden is in the worat place nearly 95 per cent, of its inhabitants having defective teeth. Arnen“: m a good second with 93 per cent. Of army recruits, 20 per cent, in tiennany, 24 per cent, in England, and 28 per cent, in Sweden have practically useess teeth. Of all peoples the Esquimaux have the best teeth, only I 5 per cent, them defective. This is due to their exclusive meat diet, as meat does not cause teeth to decay. The report farmer states that the cans© of people’s toefcn deteriorating with the advance of civilisation is laziness, food necessitating mefiticatioo not being eaten. Decayed teeth are the cause of many dangerous diseases, such as chlorosis and diseases of the stomach.

The ‘ Lancet’ this week enlarges on the dangers of the sponge. Enormous quantities of waiter pass through it, and it is obvious that the sponge must arrest the impurities of water just os does a good niter, and sooner or later slimy matter accumulates, the quantity and quality of which depend upon the ’ character of the water supply. The use of soap would, as a rule, increase the slime owing to the formation of insoluble curds of lime soap. < organisms and the amount or impurity in the_ water may be quite insignificant in relatively small volumes of the water, but when the accumulation caught in a sponge represents some hunv6 ■ gallons of water, the sponge may obviously team with potentialities, for ©viL It is well to know the risks we run in onr morning tub, although nothing pleases our contemporary better than to make our flesh creep. -Has the Gulf Stream Turned ? Scientists are at the present moment groaitly perplexed and mystified at the reports which are coming to hand of the vagaries of the Gulf Stream, which, abandoning its steady course north-east, is, according to the statements of eminently respectable captains, at present flowing in another direction, a proceeding oos to navigation, and calculated to exercise an unpleasant influence on the weather conditions. The remarkable vagaries of the weather have hitherto been ascribed to the Californian earthquake. The first report published her© (says th© New York correspondent of the ‘ Central News’) that the Stream was flowing backwards were naturally treated in the Press with levity, but later advices have modified these an< i riav f arrives Captain Quick, of the Morgan liner El Alha, to give what is probably th© real state of affairs. He fiayis After passing the Lights on bombrero Key, in the Strait of Florida, we should have begun to feel the help of the Gulf Stream, Wilien we did not reach Alligator Reel, thirty-five miles farther, until nearly on© o’clock in the afternoon X oould rpoX- account for ifc. The 6ore , w was making sixty-eight revolutions, which drives her at fourteen knots, bub it had taken half an hoar longer than usual. Between two other points, thirtv-four miles aipart, we lost another half-hour.” The can torn concludes that tire Gulf Stream, instead of setting north-east at the usual sp&ecl of a knot and a-half, was getting westward at the same rate of progress. Captain Quick proves his assertions in a most categorical way. but has no theory to account for th© phenomenon, thouuii h© is, like many others, inclined to give the earthquake credit for his experience. —■ —* —Can Trees Be Educated?— Antoine Ladae, a prosperous but heretofore obscure gentleman farmer in the iWUih of France, believes that trees can and should Ire educated to an extent that veil! enable them to protect themselves against freaks of the weather. He intends asking the State to offer a. prize—toward which he will himself offer a substantial contribution—to be awarded to anyone who discovers some method whereby hereditary arboreal stupidity may be eradicated.

1 his sapient Frenchman has observed, in th© ooun&c of long years of experience sis a cultivator of the soil, that the early days of March are always warm ajwi sunshiny, and that just as regularly, some two or three weeks later, there follows a full in temperature, when the mercury often drops belo-w the freezing point. But the imbecile trees in his orchard, as soon th cy feel the first outbreak of warmer weather, assuming that spring has come to stay, put forth their buds, which get nipped by the succeeding frosts, and thereby much fruit is lost. Year , after >ear they get caught in the same fashion, both young trees and old trees. They do not profit by experience. They are no wiser than they were when Eve plucked the first apple and tried it on Adam. There must be some way, argues Ladue, by which some glimmerings of intelligence —<sr at least iiistinot—can be implanted m trees. They are just as much alive, he asserts, as oysters or mussels, and, for aU ttot, ecienc© can prove to the contrary, have just much of what passes muster as brains, i et, in the coarse of centuries, both th© oyster and the mussel have learned when to shut up tight and do some other things that tend to preserve them from premature destruction. Nature having failed so lamentably to teach fruit trees how bo avoid being bamboozled bv th© weather, Ladue says that man ehrould sten m and try to impart the needed lesson. The fact that he is wiling to shell out some money himself, if the authorities can be induced to take the matter up, is evidence of his own good faith. Meanwhile, he doesn’t mind a bit bring called a crank. Some folk have suggested that it would be just as well worth while to offer a prize to anyone who discovers some method whereby the weather can be trained to conduct itself seasonably, and abandon its pernicious habit of fool mobees.

—Wonders of th© Body.— “Tbs human body is a kind of city, full of wonderful inventions, experts and specialists of all kinds,” a biologist said. lake, for instance, the liver. The liver is a pure food department, manned by excellent chemists. AU the food we eat passes through the liver, where the chemists analyse it, and remove everything poisonous or harmful. These chemists are kept busy. They do their work well. But, of course, when we eat poisonous toadstools or fish full of ptomaines, their resources are swamped, and they are powerless. W© carry in the head spirit levels whereby our equilibrium is maintained. The semi-circular canals they arc called. They are hollowed out in the tone, and -partly filled with fluid lymph. They are perfect spirit levels, and the pram, watching them, keeps us from losing oar balance. When they go wrong we can no longer walk or stand. There is m the stomach a hydrochloric acid factory. It consists of a great number of ingenious little machines that manufacture hydroohJonc acid out of salt. As our food enters the stomach, the factory hands scniipe off the salt, and dumping it into one end of the little machines, they draw out other end hydrochloric add This substance’s function is the destruction of injurious food microbes. If it were absent, a angle meal’s microbes would be sufficed, to kUI met But the most wonderful department of the body city is the surgical department. San pose I break a bone. An expert is at once telegraphed from my brain to the seat of the accident. He sets to work, and surrounds each broken end of the bone with a strong elastic ferule of cartilage—a ferule that it takes a month to complete. This is the knitting process, which causes so much pain at the beginning. After the ferules are complete, -welding th© broken ends together, the expert builds between them a layer of bone, and gradually he substitutes for ih© temporary cartilage ferule a permanent bone solder, till ultimately the broken bon© is whole.”