Scientific and Useful.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1519, 12 February 1886, Page 4

Scientific and Useful.

Till MONTMORENCY FYLLB.

We mentioned recently that it was in contemplation to light the whole of Quebec by means of the power to be obtained at the falls of Montmorency. A more ambitions scheme •"ill is mooted— til, the •uperceesion of steam in the factories and workshop* by the current from dynamos located at the fulls, and also the ert»b!i-hmf nt of a small electric railway.

WATFR WITH LKAD IX IT.

Paralysis, colic, gont, rheumatism, kidney disease, blindness and insanity may all come, it ceems, fiom drinking water with lead in it. Under these cireumstanes, a simple test for discovering the presence of lead in water may well be u efut. It consists of adding a little tincture of cochineal, whi<h, if there be the least trace of lead in the water, will colour it blue instead of rose.

A TUNNEL THIRTY MILKS LONG THROUGH

SOLID ROCK.

The new Croton Aqueduct tunnel, now under conduction from Crjton to Harlem river, will hire a n aximum capacity of 320,000000 gallons per day, and will cost, when completed, 116,000.0 K). The aqueduct will be a tunnel bla-t.-. t rough nearly thirty miles of solid rock, and lined throughout with cement and three layers of brick masonry. The contracts for this enormous undertaking were let on December 13, 1884. and the work is now under full head-way, and to be completed within thirty-three months from date of beginning.— Western Manufacturer.

TRANSMISSION Of TOWER IN NEW ZEALAND

It is reported from New Zealnnd that a Dunedin electrical engineering firm is carrying out a oontract for the transmission of power to run a stamping battery of 20 heads. The B'vne of operations is a gold mine in the mountainous country, some thirty miles behind lake Wakatipu, and the power to run the battery is transmitted from a watorfall in the neighbouring Talley, straight over a mountain about 2000 feet tn height, and for a distance of two miles. The conducting wire is of the same size as an ordinary telegraph wire, but of copper, and is suspended from telegraph insulators in the usual manner. "Tins is from an English paper. It is the first we have heard of it.]

SENSE OF COLOUB IN ANIMALS. J. Graber has investigated the sense of colour and illumination in animals. To decide whether animals had a sense of colour of light, he placed them in a box so arranges! that qualitative and quantitative rays fell on one or the other of its two divisions, which communicated with one another. Five mammals, seven birds, two reptiles, three amphibians, two fishes, three mollueca, twen'v seven insects, two spiders, and two worms were experimented with. It was found that the souse of colour, as well as the power of per ■ iring light, was much more widely distributed among animals than has been generally supposed.

THE BrN-OLOWS

Towards the end of October the remarkable sun-glows were again seen at Stockholm. In the western horizon a yellow cioud-bank, strongly illuminated, appeared behind a number of tiny clonds, greyish in colour, the sky above the former, to a height of about 45°, being lurid, entirely colouring the clouds. Later on in the evening the glow imparted to the edges of the clouds the most remarkable reflections of colour, varying from ochre to yellow, violet, and pink, with shadings of blue. At times the higher-lying clouds formed tho most remarkable formations. It seemed that the glow was situated between cumulus and cirrus clouds. MECHAKISM 0E THE BEE. An investigator into the mysteries of animal life asserts that a bee's working tools comprise a variety equal to that of the average mechanic. He says that the feet of the common working bee exhibit tho combination of a basket, a brush, and a pair of pincers. The brush, the hairs of which are arranged in symmetrical rows, is only to be seen with the microscope. With this brush of fairy delicacy the bee brushes its velvet robe to remove the pollen dust with which it becomes loaded while sucking up the nectar. Another article, hollowed like a spoon, re eives all the gleanings which the insect carries to the hive. Finally, bv opening them, one upon another, by means of a hioge, these two pieces become a pair of pincers, which render important service in the construction of the combs.— Scientific Ameri-

KS ECLIPSE OF THE ST?.'. To contev anjthing'like an adequate idea of the effect of an eclipse on different minds, the writer can hardly do better than describe an eclipse he witnessed in Egypt in 1882. On the binks of the Nile, about ono mile north of the town of Sohag, a large concourse of spectators were usscmbled to witneis the forthcoming spectacle. A small party of those spectators were gathered round a number of ws'ruments, doubly protected from the injurious sand-winds by stockades of rushes and by tents. A space extending about three hundred yards, and enclosed on each side by the Nile and a grove of acacia trees, scarcely two hundred yards away, was guarded by a body of Egyptian soldiery. Protection was only wanted frcn incursions of the curious} but had the natives been less informed of what was to take place, Egyptian soldiery, only a little less cowardly than the fellaheen, would have been small protection against any fanatical outbreak. The river was lined with steamers, dahabeahs, and smaller cruft; whi'st to the south of the encampment, on the sloping bank, were gathered a large concourse of the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, squatting on the sand in their peculiar Eastern fashion. The eclipse began and made some progress before the unscientific spectators noticed that the tun was fast dis appearing, but when they became aware of it they gave vent to their feelings by a low moaning, the sou' d increasing in volume as the moon passed on. The alarm now spread to the feathered spectators, who, becoming at last cognizant of the rapidly waning light, rushed cackling hither and thither, into steamboat or into observatory, in search of a place in which to roost. At last a thin streak only of light only was left; it disappeared, and there was a sudden change from weak daylight to a dull violet, which threw on the neighbouring scenery a weird, ghastly, hue. At this moment a sudden shout arose from the crowd—a shout unheeded, scarcely heard by the astronomers, who suppressed their excitement, and endeavoured to make the most of the seventy seconds during which totality was to last. And yet even they were taken off their guard, for alongside the brilliant corona was seen a small, but vivid, scimitarshaped comet—a stranger unexpected, and never afterwards traced. Little wonder, then, if the regulation forbidding speech was for a moment disregarded. The short seventy seconds were soon over, the last observation made, and whilst one set of spectators were raising their thanks to Allah, (the other had laid aside their calm reserve to join in mutual eoflfratuUtioDi.~o. B»y Wood, in Otmli'i family Maganae.