Scientific and Useful.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1516, 22 January 1886, Page 4

Scientific and Useful.

light collan are frequently the cause of sore throats.

Eolbe of Leipsic finds that salicylic acid Is an antiseptic body, and that it. retards all kinds of fermentation, as in milk, beer, &c. BLIND FISHES IV CALIFORNIA. Mr J. D. Catou writes to the American Naturalist that at Santa Clara College, iu the s>an Jose valley, a 170 foot artesian well is (lowing, from which are discharged sightless fl-hes from one to two inches in length. TUB DANISH AETIC EXPEDITION. The Danish expedition to the East Coatt of Greenland has returned to Copenhagen after an absence of 20 months. The highest latitude reached was 66deg. Btnin. Cop'ain Holm <•< n-id--re it p'aced beyond doubt that there are ro remains along the Greenland East ! Coast of any former Scandinavian expediI tiocs. VEGETABLE FOOD. Strength is chiefly found in the vegetable feedfi.-; the elephant and rhinoceros build | up their mighty frames without the assistance ; of flesh food ; the horse, the ox, and all the j domestic animals whose strength is servcpi able to man, are by nature Teget tritns ; in | short there are innumerable indicators of ( e | fact that the purest, most wholesome and | most food for mm may Se ob- ; tained direct fr.-ra the bountiful hand of net- ' ure, without any admixture of blood and

s'aughter. THE EBAEATAO AIH-WAVE. The greatest air disturbance caused by the eruption transmitted itself aa a regularly moving atmospheric wave, with Erakatao as centre, orer the whole earth. Forty places in Europe, Asia, and Australia are named where the dlsturbauce of air has been in Heated by barometers, and with the help of these data the author baa been able to calculate the velocity of the air movement, which has been found to be considerably less than the velocity of sound at o.leg. C; consequently the movements took place at a great height and in cold air strata. Ace rding to Verbal's calculation this air-wave required 35 j hours to make the circuit of the earth. BALLOONING. Alfred E. Moore, of Winsted, Conn., made a 4»>-mile jourrey in 35 minutes in a balloon, ' on the 24th of September. The trip was made at an average of 60JO feet above the ea th, and in speaking of his experi nee, he ! raid : —" Billoons, iu descending, frighten the crows and poultry terribly. Going over farmhouses, I never heard such a racket in my life. When jou are far up and above the clouds, the awful silcuce is t rrible. You can I hear the watch tick in your pocket, and the I snapping of a straw hat wdl make you start. The rushing of blood through your wlnle body i? an experience which you wouldn't care to have lost. There is uo sensation of moving along, when, perhaps, yoa are going at the rate ot a mile per mnnte, and everything is as still as death.

HOW FLIES MOVg TPON" SMOOTH SURFACES. Some time ago Dr. J. £. Rombouts established the fact that flies attach themselves to smooth surfaces by the aid of a liquid sec re-! tion from the feet. This liquid, however, is not sticky, but the attachment is brought about by capillary attraction. Dr. Rombouts | has recently strengthened his conclusions by an experiment. Several flies were confined to a glass plate by strips of paper, aid the liquid that accumulated was sufficient to be perceptible to the naked eye. By the aid of experiments with gluts balls, it was found that the adhesive power of the liquid was lees than that of water, and about equal to that of olive oil. Hence capillary action is obviously the only force that could bring abvut the required result.

THE LOUDON BASIN. The effect of the number of artesian wells sunk in the metropolis is causing a gradual lowering of the chalk springs; this is now going on at the rate of about 18 inches per annum. The depression in central district! has reduced the bead of the chalk springs to more than 80 feet below Ordnance datum line ; it would, however, appear that great as this cone of depression bus already become, the outlying portions of the chalk formation have as yet not been affec ed to any perceptible extent. In confirmation of this view it may be mentioned that last week an artesian well was completed at Yewsley, near West Drayton, bs Messrs Le Grande and Sutcliff, of London, where immediately on chalk being struck at 132 feet the water rose to 8 feel above the surface and continues to overflow with increased lorce. Tbe level of the ground at the site of this well is about 100 feet above Ordnance datum, thus demonstrating a difference of nearly 200 feet in the levels of the chalk springs between this spot and the centre of London, the distance from Yewsley being It) miles.

FANNING BBEB. During August the beekeeper expects to hear the " mighty hum " of the bees if he be near a hive. If no sound proceeds from a hive in July or August it shows an unusual state of the weather. Last winter, when tbe mercury was 10 degrees below zero, a thermometer was thrust into a cluster of bees. On tbe inside ol tbe cluster the temprrature was 65 degrees, and on the outeide 46 degrees Fahrenheit. If tbe heat generated by the bees when the mercury is 10 below is 65 degrees, what must it be when the outside temperature is IK) degrees ? It is intense, but the bees Lave a way of reducing it, at least a way of creating a diaft and keeping tbe atmosphere puie. A number of bees—a thousand or more, perhaps—act as ventilators or fanners. They stand, beads djwn, with bodies at an angle of 45 degrees, and keep their wings in motion. Throughout tbe hive, on all tbe combs, up ana down, tbe ventilators keep their fans going. On the alighting board, with bodies pointing from the hive, they fan alto. At the entrance of one hive, on a day in August, two hundred and eighty bees, by actual count, were fanning. The honeygatheters dropped down upon them, tumbled over them, but they kept to their work. LIGHTNING BODS. Between 1810 and 1825, before rods were inttoduced, no fewer than thirty-five sail of tbe line and thirty-five frigates and smaller vessels were completely disabled j and, in two hundred cases recorded, three hundred seamen were either killed or injured. When the lightning rod was introduced, every mast was furnished with a capacious conductor permanently fixed and connected with bands of copper passing through the sides of the ship under the deck beams, and with large bolts hading through the keel and keelson, and including, by other connections, all the principal metallic masses employed in the construet.on of the hull. Since tbe adoption of this arrangement, it appears that damage by lightning has positively vanished from tbe Navy The various telegraph companies suffered serious damages by every thunderstorm by the destruction by lightning of their pole*. The poles are now provided with small lightning rods, sad all damage has entirely petti