Risks of Research.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 1811, 11 July 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

Risks of Research.

THE MISHAP WHICH BEFELL THE INVENTOR. CHLOMDE'OJ; 1 NITROGEN.

The dangerous quests upon which enthuuiastic chemiatß may embark are strikingly illustrated by the case oi the yellow oily Bubetanoe called chloride of nitrogan, saya the London DailiY News. This terrible explosive was diEOOveied in 181 i by Dulong, wuoloat one oye and three fingers in a vain attempt to ascertain ita composition. So powerful ia it that when Faraday and Sir H. Davy took it in hand they provided themselves with thick glass maska to proteot their oyea from ilia flying bits of glass, and to some extent from tho irritatiug vapors of the oil itself. Faraday was on one occasion stunned by the detonation of only a tew grains of tho compound, and bits of the tube in whioh it h&d been contained almost penetrated his mask. On another occasion Sir Humphry Davy was /severely injured by the explosion of a few drops under the receiver of an air-pump. Since their time the pxeoico composition of the oil has been a mystery. At last, however, Dr. Gatterman, of Gottiugon, has succeeded in its analjrsi?. He finds that the substance examined hitherto was impure, and that the extreme danger of handling it was partly due to that fact and partly to the varying action of light. Any bright light, he has found, ia enough to produoe detonation, a discovery made by the sudden destruction of his apparatus by'a stray Eunbe&m. Chemical research nowadays is apt to stray among the teeming pastures of organic chemistry, to the neglcas cf the old problems offered by the inorganio world, though the solution of those problems belongs to the highest efforts of experimental soienoo. Meteorites are said to sometimes attain a velocity of 180,000 feei per Bdcond. The use of niohel bromide as a hypnotio and sedative has largely iaoroased within a recent period. A journal of science says that a machine of one-horse power would keep' ' 27,000,000 watches going. A constant and disagreeable sweet taste has bean reported in one cs.bc as a result of tha substitution of sacahxrin for sugar. Instantaneous photography by the magneßium flash has been applied to a study of the pupil of the eye as it rests in total darkness. A medioal opinion is, that if consumption were eradicated fwwn oattle, it would soon disappear from the human race. Five per cent of English oattls have tuberculosis, and twenty per cent of some Jersey herds of the United States are said to bo affeoted. Experiments performed in London by Prof Shelfoitd BMwell show that an iron rod ia elongated when it is magnetised ; but if the magnetising force be continued beyond the power of the rod to absorb it, the elongation becomes gradually less and less, until the rod, after returning to its original length, ultimately becomes shorter than when in the unmagnetised oondition. A scientist haa discovered a curious regularity in the geographical distribution of certain virtues and vices. Intemperance is found north of the forty-eighth parallel ; amatory aberrations south of the forty-fifth ; financial extravaganoe in large Beaports ; thrift in pastoral highland regions. Under this theory the cure of certain faults might be produced by transportation of offenders from ooe climate to another. In a lecture on " Tha Tongue as an Indication of Disease," delivered before the Boyal College of Physicians in London, it was Btated that the appearance of the tongue may be classified under twelve heads : 1. Healthy, moist; 2. Stippled, dotted with white; •■. Stippled and coated } 4. Coated white ; 5 Strawberry ; 6. White, plastered ; 7. Furred or shaggy; 8. Eneraßied, dry, brown; 9. Furred or encrusted, becoming bare ; 10. Denuded, red, absence of normal covering ; 11. Bad, moiat, dry membraneous covering ; 12. Dyanosed (blue.)