General News.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11734, 12 September 1902, Page 7

General News.

\n interesting international conference has beeu summoned by the Austrian Minister of Agncu-iUire. its object, is to determine irom the data that has been provided tlie efficiency or usetulness of firing shells of air into the clouds to prevent hailstorms. Opinions differ on the subject. Many swear by the process; others at it. The tonner are numbered among tnose who practice the pursuit; the latter among their neighbours who allege that their properties are visited with a severity proportionate to thefury of the others' fire. One is then drawn to wonder what would happen if the whole countryside opened fire on the approaching storm at once, and to the conclusion that tne hail would find its way to our hospitable shores. Bu^as a fact the matter is one of considerabiie importance, and if it can be proved that this feu de joie really does disperse a storm, and that th^ cost of ammunition is not so expensive as the damage to crops would be, the conference may congratulate itself, and it will be proved that the primitive peasants who used to fire silver slugs and imprecations at the malevolent witch of the storm were certainly entertaining an angel unawares, paradoxical as the sentence sounds. To wdJcome and speed the parting guest all in one breath, so to speak, is, when that guest is a hailstorm, an utilitarian as it is polite. What is the cause of the immunity of certain animals to certain poisons? This is one of the as yet unsolved problems in the toxicology of plant substances. It is said that the difference in susceptibility is not unconnected with the relative cerebral development of the animals in uestion to those that are not immune. For instance, the poisons that affect the brain tracts and the nerves, suo has atrophine and morphine, •are muc hmore in jurious to a ma nthan to his brethren lower in the scale. If we take into account their comparative weights, dogs and horses can take ten times! more morphine than we can. The dove can absorb 500 times, while the frog is equal to 1000 times as much as will effectually dispose of a man. Frohner explains why herbivorous animals are more affected by metallic poisons than are carnivorous. In sheep and cattle the digestive tract is longer, an dthe food remains longer in the body—several days in fact—whereas the carnivorius creatures reject what is left of their food in 24 hours. In the Southern States of America it s said that chickens are fed on strychnine in order to poison their natural enemy, the hawk.