SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 28, 11 July 1891, Page 148

SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL.

LONGEVITY. Out of ever 1,000 people nearly 100 reach 75, 38 reach 85, and two reach 95. The number of persons in proportion to the whole population that reach 70 tn Norway is one-thiid, in England nearly one-fifth, in France one eighth, and in Ireland one-eleventh. As far as can be calculated, the average length of life which is computed in the seventeenth century to average only 13 years, is in the eighteenth increased to 20, and in the nineteenth to 36. Men used to be considered old when they pa-sed 50. A WEATHER PROPHET. Mr Hugh Clements states that he has discovered certain relations between the moon and meteorological conditions as will enable him to foretell the weather with great exactness and certainty. ‘By means of these co-ordinates,’ be says, ‘ it will be possible to forecast the weather not only at London, but at every place on the earth's surface, where meteorological records have been kept for past years. I shall publish a work on the weather shoitly, pointing out how the rainfall may not only be forecast for many years in advance for months, but even for days.’ EXTINCT BIRDS. The dinornis or ‘ moa,’ must have equalled ten feet in height and it probably represents therefore, the largest species of the bird world. No less interesting is a certain extinct wingless bird of Madagascar, called the JEpiornis. This form was as large as the moa of New Zealand, and that its extinction is only of recent date is proved by the circumstances under which its remains occur in the alluvial formations of the great island just noted. Curiously enough, the eggs of the sepiornis have been discovered in the deposits which yield its bones. These eggs measure from 13in. to 14in. in diameter, and the cubic capacity of one of the eggs has been calculated to equal that of six ostrich eggs, or 148 hen’s eggs. THE BACTERIAL PLAGUE. Are we safe nowhere from bacteria, some one inquires, not even when we are sealed up in a vacuum in a glass case ? Not content with showing us that horrid monster’s claw and fight in every drop of water we drink, scientific gentlemen have now been microscopically overhauling a hailstone and finding that an infinitesimal speck of the ice contains no less than 400 to 700 bacteria They may be the germs of smallpox, scarlet fever, leprosy, naughtiness, and crime. Not even ice will kill them, for they thaw out and wriggle ferociously. The invention of the microscope revealed wonders to man, but it has made life a burden to nervous people. Nothing is free from microbes any more, nothing is pure, except the benevolent motive of one, says the same inquirer, who lends a friend five dollars when he never expects so get it back again. LA GRIPPE MICROBES. Dr. W. G. Gentry, of Chicago, has secured what he thinks is undoubtedly a microbe of la grippe. He found that thirty-four years ago and again sixteen years ago la grippe was epidemic among human beings, and that seventeen years it attacked horses, causing the well-remembered ‘epizootic ’ epidemic. He inclines to believe that the earth at intervals passed through a stretch of space impregnated with what astronomers call ‘stardust.’ Several days ago it occurred to him that he might trap some of the dust or microbes. Carefully polishing a blank microscope- slide he took it out of doors and passed it throngh the air. Placing the slide under his microscope he counted seven heretofore unidentified microbes in the instrument. He had the slide mounted, and then obtaining some microbes from a patient afflicted with la grippe, found them identical in every respect with those he caught in the air. CATERPILLAR CATCHER. This invention will, doubtless, interest some of our readers who are interested in gardening. The system is in use largely in Germany. The trap consists of a strip of gauze wire, 2in. wide, and of a suitable length. On this is fastened a thin layer of flax or hemp thread, about 12in. long, arranged so that 7in. are below and sin. above the gauze. Over this there is a strip of gauze wire 4in. wide of which 2in. are cut in sharp points and bent horizontally’ A strip of felt, lin. wide and |in. thick, is fixed right round the tree below the first branches ; on this the gaze wire strips are laid, and fixed to the tree with small nails. The flax threads (sin. long upwards) are turned down over the horizontally lying wire points so that they hang downwards. The felt strip prevents the thread from touching the tree, and the points hold the upper and the lower flax threads two inches apart. The caterpillars and beetles, etc., that climb up the tree, come into direct contact with the threads, are caught in them, and must die. A NEW BUTTER. Cocoanut butter is a new food-stuff', which seems to have a useful future before it. According to a report by the British Vice-Consul at Berlin, the production of an edible fat from the marrow of the cocoanut has been carried out for the last two years by a firm at Mannheim, the process having been discovered three years before by Dr. Schlinck. Factories having the same object are about to be established at Paris and Amsterdam. The nuts come from the South Sea Islands, and also from certain places on the African and South American coasts. The butter, which is sold at less than half the price of ordinary butter in London, contains from sixty to seventy per cent, of fat, and twenty-three to twenty-five per cent, of organic matter. Its colour is white; it is or an agreeable taste, is suitable for cocking purposes, and is being purchased by the poor, who preferit to margarine. Being free from acid, it digests with greater ease than dairy butter, and it is preferable in other ways to the bad butter which too often finds its way to market. It is also a more attractive compound than the various preparations called margarine, some of which have such very questionable origin.