Scientific and Useful.

Western Star, Issue 946, 9 May 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

Scientific and Useful.

TTJCHSIA AVD CAMELIIA. There is but one way of remembering how to spell "fuchsia," and that is to bear in mind that that interesting flower was named after a man cilled Fuchs. Without that precaution the "s" will get into the wrong place, and so it has been with Andrew Lang in his fairy story written for Mr Doyle's drawings. He writes " fuschia" with invariable aplomb. In the same way, if the name of the first importer of the camellia —Father Cammelli, the Jesuit missionary—were better known, we should less often copy the stupid French corruption, " camelia."— London World, THE MOUTH OP THE CONGO Unlike most other great rivers, the Congo has no delta. It discharges into the sea, by a single, unbroken estuary, seven and a half miles across, in which a sounding line of 200 fathoms does not everywhere touch bottom, and a current runs of five to seven knots an hour. This enormous volume exceeds that of every other known stream except the Amazon. A conservative estimate of the amount of water discharged by it is 2,000,000 cubic feet per second. The Mississippi, when at flood height, carries down no more than 1,600,000 cnbic feet, and sinks in the dry season to 228,000. Moreover, the Congo never luns low. It swells and sinks, as the rainy and dry seasons succeed each other, hut within a relatively narrow range of oscillation. AH AUG BE TO BORE A SQUARE HOLE. The first and only auger ever manufactured that will bore a square hole is now in the shops of the Cleveland Machine Company. This auger bores a two-inch square hole, the size used in ordinary frame buildings, and barns, but they can bo made on the same principle as round-hole augers. Its end, instead of having a screw or bit, has a cam motion which oscillates a cutter mounted on a steel rocking knife which cuts on both sides. In order to prevent the splintering of the wood the ends of the cutter are provided with small semi-circular-shaped saws which help in cutting out perfectly square corners. It is estimated that this new process will save the labour of three men who work with chisels, as one man can conveniently out a two-inch mortice in the same length of time he can bore a round hole. The invention is the work off a Wooster man who has given the subject years of anxious thought.— Cleveland Herald. THE OBBIT OP THE EARTH. In passing, also, I may notice another common error. Many imagine that the path of the earth is obviously elliptic as well as obviously eccentric, and suppose that is only the carelessness of astronomical draughtsmen that has caused the earth's path to be always represented as circular. But, as a matter of fact, while the eccentricity is obvious enough on the scale of the usual astronomical diagrams, the elliptioity is to small to show. Even at the time, 850,000 years ago, when the earth's orbit had the greatest eccentricity it has had for the last two millions of years, and very nearly the greatest it can have, the shape of the path waß appreciably circular. Putting the mean distance at 13, and the eccentricity (regarded here as a distance) at 1, the departure from the circular form (that is the greatest distance by which the earth's elliptic path fell within the enclosing circle) would be represented by no more than the difference between the square root of 169 (i.e., 13) and the square root of 168 (about 1296). The numbers 325 aud 324 represent the actual proportion between the greatest and shortest axes of the earth's orbit. So that if a circle is drawn from a radius of siin. it nowhere departs more that the 100th part of an inch from the ellipse which would represent with perfect accuracy the orbit of the earth 850,000 years ago, when it was so muoh more eccentric than it is now.— Mr Proctor, in Knowledge.

COMETS AND METEOBB. Mr Proctor thus concludes an article in Knowledge on tbe above subjeot j—l imagine that comets and meteors are either the " fragments that remain " Jrom the vast mass _of nebulous matter or cosmic dust out of which tbe solar system was gradually formed—or ehe they had their origin from the various orbß forming that system when as yet those orbs were in tbe suniiko state. Only one member of the solar system is now in that state—the sun hinißelfj though the giant planets retain more sunlike characteristics than many imagine. Wow the sun does unquestionably ejeot matter from his interior trom time to time, with velocities sufficing to carry such matter for ever away from him; he has been caught in the act. Again, the microscopic examination and the chemical analysis of certain meteors have agreed in showing that these bodies were once aggregations of liquid globules in a hydrogen atmosphere of considerable density—or, as Sorby the mineralogist and Graham the chemist agree in putting the matter, these bodies once existed under conditions such as belong only to sunlike bo dies. If the sun still gives birth to meteor-flight, one can see no reason Why the giant planets, when they were suns, Bhould not have done likewise j but, on the contrary, strong reason to believe they would have done so., The comet families of the giant families travel, on orbits indicating such an origin, and a flight of metorio bodies ejected from Uranus millions of years ago would travel on precisely such an orbit as that of the November meteors. Such seems to me the most reasonable interpretation of the facts, and one most consonant with all the evidence we have.

arwEOTX-Eoun o'clock on xhb railways. Tne first of tbe railway companies to adopt tbe new method of oomputng the time appears to be the Isle ot Wight Railway Company, who in two pages of the January issue of their time-tables print the 24 o'clock dial arrangement, and thus do away with the necessity of a.m. and p.m., although the improvement, if it may be called so, is perhaps not so apparent on a small isolated railway like the one in question, where there is little likelihood of mistakes happening through confusing morning with afternoon as on the great through routes from London to the north or west, where a.m. and p.m. become mihgled up in the time-tables in the most confusing manner, often leading to most annoying results i passengers. Looking at the new system wit bout prejudice, it must be evident that it is out that, u once well started, is sure to become more and more common, as its advantages are sufficiently obvious, and perhaps none will value it more than the railway companies, as it will much simplify the making up and printing time-tables both for their own and public use. The railway companies will be under the necessity of supplying new clocks and watches throughout their system, which will involve no small cost, as the number is very large, unless it will be found practicable to alter the dial by having another row of figures, ranging from 13 to 24 added, allowing tbe time-piece to go two revolutions per day as at present. All new clocks and watches should be made to go only one revolution per day, and these would in time gradually supersedfl,, the others,— Mechanical Worl4,