SCIENCE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7353, 13 June 1885, Page 4 (Supplement)

SCIENCE AND ART.

Distilled water is gaining favour for table use as well a* in the treatment of diseases of Ik* digestive organs. There are spiders as small as a grain of sand, and they spin a thread so fine that it * fakfe! 4000 of them toaake a human hair. ' Children grow taller, ifc is said, during an acnte sickness, such as fever, the growth of she bones being htimnlated by the febtus condition.

A liniment of equal parts of winter-green and olive oil, or soap lioiaat'st, is said to afford almost immediate relief from pain in acute rheumatism.

The Medical World reports a case, now under observation, in which the patient's hair—which had become prematurely grey is slowly returning to its original colour under the internal administration of phosphorised cod-liver oil. The World has previously noted similar restorations under the same treatment. An" effort has recently been made to measure the dimensions and speed of deep sea waves with marked success. The longest waves recorded measured a half mile from crest to crest, with a period of twenty-three seconds. Waves having a length of 500 to 600 feet, and having a period of ten to twelve seconds, are the ordinary storm waves of the North Atlantic Ocean. A London critic says in reference to a loan exhibition of deceased water-colour painters recently opened :—" One result of a visit to an exhibition aueh as this is the forcible proof it brings to the ignorant beholder of the superior ' staying' qualities of water over oilcolour. There is one drawing, by De Witte, painted in 1669, as fresh and bright as if it had only been finished yesterday. M. C. Flanders, the Kendall (Orleans County, N.Y.) astronomer, has written a letter reasserting his belief that the moon is not a solid body, detailing bis observations during the recent eclipse and quoting authorities to sustain his position. Mr. Flanders claims that during the recent eclipse, the semi-transparency of the moon wta made quite evident by means of a telescope, sun spots being discerned through the moon's disc. '

A London professor, in a lecture recently reported in the papers of that city, enumerated paralysis, colic, gout, rheumatism, kidney disease, blindness, and insanity, as results that may all come from drinking water with lead in it, A simple test for discovering the presence of lead in water is thus described It consists of adding a little tincture of cochineal, which, if there be the least trace of lead in the water, will colour it blue instead of rose.

The bone industry of the United States is Important.' The four feet of an ordinary ox will make a pint of neatsfoot; oil. Not a hone of aay animal is thrown away. Many cattle shin bones are shipped to Europe for the making of knife-handles, where they bring £8 per ton. The thigh bones are the most valuable, being worth £16 per ton for cutting into tooth-brush bandies. The foreleg bones are worth £6 per ton, and are made into collar buttons, parasol handles, and jewellery, though sheep's legs are the staple for parasol handles. The water in which the bones are boiled is reduced to glue, the dtut which comes from sawing the bones is used to feed tattle anil, poultry, and all bones th*% cannot 'he »sad thus, or for bone-blsi'fc arod in reSstisg sugar, are made Into fertilisers and help to -snrioh the «oiL As regards wast«, it is the story of the pignothing is lost except the epaeal. An astronomer gives us an idea of the relative weight of the sou and earth, as follow* :~" List us, to start with, weigh the sun. Suppose we have a balance gigantio enough for the purpose, and the sun is resting on one of the scales. Now put the earth in the opposite scale. You might as well weigh your head against one of the towers of the East River Bridge. Pile a hundred thousand earths into the btlance, and the nun does not stir. There lies the colossus Immovable. ■ But get together another hundred thousand, and then another hundred thousand, and stack them up in the pan against the sun. Three hundred thousand worlds piled up oh one side of the balance, and still the sun keeps them up. It would take 30,000 move, or 330,000 earths, to make the beam even against a single sun, and six Bextilliona is the number representing the weight of the earth in tons, a mass which is shooting through space at the rate of eighteen miles a second."