SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 44, 31 October 1891, Page 527

SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL.

USES OF THE WATERCRESS. The watercress is a plant containing many valuable properties. A curious characteristic of it is that, if grown in a ferruginous stream, it absorbs into itself five times the amount of iron that any other plant does. For all amemic constitutions it is, therefore, specially of value. But it also contains proportions of garlic and sulphur, of iodine and phosphates, and is a blood purifier, while abroad it is thought a most wholesome condiment with meat, roast or grilled. MECHANICAL POSSIBILITIES OF THE NEAR FUTURE. The great mechanical possibilities in the way of electrical development are being prosecuted with zeal all over the world since it is realized that this power is the most easily transferred of all. A crucial test is now being made at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, where arrangements are made for transferring 300 horse power from the Neckar. The system is also being operated on a smaller scale in many places in Switzerland. The French have planned works at Havre for utilizing the ebb and flow of the tide to work turbine wheels to generate power for dynamos to supply Paris with light. A CENTRAL AMERICAN AEROLITE. A wonderful and startling phenomenon occurred lately in the department of Cuzco. About midday on Saturday, July 4th, an aerolite came almost in contact with the earth. It crossed in a southerly direction all along the eastern region of the Cuzco, with as beautiful and luminous a tail as that of any comet ever seen. Before disappearing the meteor changed its course and rose about 30ft higher than when it was first seen, when a terrible explosion was heard, and immediately afterwards a light shower of pebbles fell throughout the neighbourhood. Thirty years ago a similar occurrence took place in that department. VENTRILOQUISM. Ventriloquism is declared by an expert to be largely imaginative, as there is no possibility of throwing the voice to a distance. Most of the old stories of its tricks are fiction. What passes for ventriloquism consists simply of mimicry and facial immobility. The performer must be some distance from his audience, or he is powerless. Whenever he wishes to make them believe that his voice sounds at a distance he merely changes it, and indicates the direction for their imagination to take. He can deceive them sideways, upward, downward, or backward, but he never undet takes to produce the effect of a speaker at their rear. To a listener close by, no ventriloquist can be in the least deceptive. AN ARMY OF BUTTERFLIES. Munich has, we are told, been invaded by an enormous ‘ army ’of butterflies. Millions of the species known as ‘ Nonnenschmetterlingen ’ attacked the city a few nights ago, attracted, as is supposed, by the brilliancy of the electric lights. The walls of the houses before which electric lamps were fixed were literally covered with the butterflies. In seveial places they forced their way through the doors and windows and fluttered around the lights. In the Cafe Kaiserhof and the Lowenbrau-Keller the intensity of the light fascinated such swarms of the butterfly ‘ nuns ’ that the devotees of King Gambrinus found their hats and clothes so thickly coated with the intruders that they hurried out and left the invaders in possession. In some places the lamps were darkened by the mass of butterflies clinging around them. A STREAK OF SOLID SILVER. It is said that the richest silver find ever made has been struck on Pomeroy Mountain, Colorado, near Caribou. It is a three-inch vein of almost pure silver. John C. Stewart was the lucky prospector, and he has exhibited specimens weighing two and three pounds a piece of almost pure native silver. Pomeroy Mountain is about a mile north-west of Caribou and just across from Caribou Hill, from which, through the old Caribou, No Name, Belcher, Poorman, aud others, millions have been produced. Here is located one of the finest and richest silver districts in Colorado. Many years ago prospectors found several large pieces of float rock at the foot of Pomeroy Mountain composed of almost solid native silver. Since that time prospectors have been constantly searching for the vein where this rich float came from, but the whole country there was covered with a slide of loose rock and earth about 50 feet deep, so prospecting could be done only by cross-cutting. This, it appears, has finally been done, and the original vein discovered JEWELLERY IN A MAN’S LEG. Major James Morrison, a well known citizen of Mount Sterling, Alabama, has just discovered in his leg an interesting relic of the first battle of Bull Run. At that battle he was shot in the leg, and ever since then has suffered from a periodical breaking out of the wound, which, though it has often been probed, has never yielded up the ball. Recently, however, the doctois succeeded in discovering and removing the irritating body, when it was found to be no bullet, but a small gold button. This was cleansed, and was seen to be inscribed with the legend, ‘E. to R. Mizpah,’ in small German lettering. The button is perfectly round, and about the size of a buckshot, having a small link attached, by which it was caught to a garment or watch chain, on which it was in all probability worn as a charm. The button was, in all probability, the loving gift of some fair young sweetheart or faithful wife, to her beloved boy in blue, who will be glad to recover the pretty trifle, which is none the worse for its long hiding in the major's leg, though the lat ter is decidedly better for its removal, and is rapidly healing since the operation.