SCIENCE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6823, 29 September 1883, Page 3 (Supplement)

SCIENCE AND ART.

A successful experiment was recently made odl the Erie railroad" in running a locomotive enliiely by hydrogen gas produced by the chemical decomposition of water under the action of ignited naphtha. E. B. Taylor, in Nature, says that the microscopic examination of the cross section ofaeingle human bairissufficient todetermine ! to which one of the race divisions of humanity ; the wearer belongs. If examined microscopically by Pruner's method, it shows circular, ! or oval, or reniforu ; its follicle curvature may be estimated by the average diameter of ' the curls as proposed by Moseley; its colouring matter may be estimated by Sorbey's ' method. There has been even a systematic ; classification of man published by Dr. W. •MuUer, of the Novara Expedition, which is ( primarily arranged according to hair, in J strait-haired races, curly-haired races, &c>, ' with a secondary division according to lan- ' guage. '' There is ac increasing tendency amongst ■thoughtful men to believe that the gas in- * teresc is not diametrically opposed to thab of electric lighting. At first the natural inference was that the two were antagonistic, and '' psople naturally pitted them against each ' other. Whether this was the right policy or not, it 'wa:j advantageous in stimulating the • gas companies and. others to give us a better J light. It is now seen, however, that to pro- j duce electricity, except upon a very extensive scale, gas engines are much more econo- _■ mical r.nd easy of working than any other, ) on account of the absence of a boiler aud loss of energy induced by it. Hence, as Dr. ( Siemens has shown, the future of electric , lighting is intimately related with the greater ] ratber than with less use of gas. 1 Seviewiug Mr. Francis Gallon's "Enquiries into Human Faculty and its Develop- , ment," the Pall Mall Gazette says : —" The . most scientifically valuable of all the scattered atraina of thought which make up the book 13 probably that pursued in the consideration ■ of the life-history of twins. In this ioquiry ] we ar-2 shown by numerous examples how '. closely the livee of both children bora under . such almost absolute identity uf conditions ', usually resemble one another in all fundamental particulars—features, character, and ■constitutional peculiarities being all but identical in many casee. Sometimes one twin, ■in one place, buys a particular object as a present for hie brother ; while the other twin, in another place, buys the self-3ame object at the self-same time for the like purpose. Sometimes both catch tbe same childish compUinta Bimultaneoualj; sometimes the two constitutions run down together from fail ore of a vital organ, and both die within a few •weekß of ooe another from the same hereditary disease." A correspondent of Nature says :—ln the aummer of 1878, when I and a friend were travelling in the Himalayas, we marched from Dharmsala to Sitnhi, passing through the native States of Muudi, Sukat, Bilaspore, and Erki. One day, when we were about half way hetwi en Sukat and BiUspore, we rested two or three hours under the shadow of a rock whence there issued a spring of water most welcome to us thirsty and somevrhat M-eary travellers. We drank our fill, and threw ourselves down upon the ground. Afte? we had been there a ehorfc time an old crow and its half-grown young one came also to slack their thirat. I happened to have a ■ small piece of a stale chupatti (or unleavoiied bread which the natives eat) in my pocket, and threw it to them; the old bird examined it, tamed it over, and then called her young -one to come and partake of it. Tbe latter ■ <iid his best to obey his parent, but the morsel was so hard and dry he copld not manage to eat it, and said so.irj. his own bird language. The old bird then as plainly replied "try again," which he did most obediently, but ■with no better success. Tne old bird then up the rejected piece and deliberately placed it in one of the little streams formed by the water of the spring (perlaap3 about six feet beneath where I was lying); she then topped off, followed by her young one, and hero comes the most curious part of the Btory. In about a quarter of an hour or ao both birds . returned to this spot; the old ono with her beak pointed to the piece of nhupitti, which Tjy.that time had been rendered soft by the .'• action of the water, and by signs and eound3 seemed plainly to tell her young one, " There ' now, the fooii ie soft; eat it, and no more - nonsenae." This the youig bird immediately 4id. . .