Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 27 September 1906, Page 35

Science Siftings

By 'Volt'

A "Costly- Fuel. A diamond -burning- in the electric arc was lately exhibited on a screen- by Sir William Crookes. The stone could be seen to sprout and . swell and blacken under the intense beat until nothing remained -but a swollen lump of graphite. • Serpent' Poison. Snake venom, says a British physician has been shown 'by recent research to be a highly composite substance, containing various poisonous . proteid bodies, which are variously affected by 'heat and fluorescent solutions in sunlight. That it has so little toxic effect when taken by the mouth is due to its slight absorption by the stomach and alteration by the bile and pancreatic juice. Our Ancestors' Hair. Red is believed by Dr. Beddoe, a European anthropologist, to have been the original color of the hair of Europeans, and he attributes the brown pigment to the action of heat. Red hair is occasionally found among the negroes, and du]l dark hair among the pigmies of Central Africa. Chinese and Japanese adults always have 'black hair, but Japanese children sometimes have dark reddish yellow hair and Chinese children may have brown hair. ' A New Island. _ News by the San Francisco " mail states that an island is growing up out' of the ocean in Behring Sea. The statement was made on the authority of Captain John Trowbrid'ge, of the steamer <• North Western,' The 'North Western' while at Dutch Harbor, fell in with the revenue cutter ' Perry,' which had finished a cruise of investigation in the neighborhood of the island. The officers of the cutter had photographs of the island, which first rose from the sea fifty-two miles from Dutch Harbor in June last It was being steadily pushed higher, and the officers declared that it was now nine hundred feet above the ocean. The sea in the neighborhood was boiling, and from the surface clouds of steam were continually escaping. The island lies directly between Bogostof. and Fire Islands, and until it cools off it is impossible to make a landing on it. Has the Gulf Stream Turned ? Scientists are at the present moment greatly perplexed and mystified at the reports which are'coming to hand of the vagaries of the Gulf Stream, which, abandoning its steady course north-east, is, according to the statements of eminently respectable captains, at present flowing -in another direction, a proceeding dangerous to navigation, and calculated to exercise an unpleasant influence on the weather conditions. The remarkable vagaries of the weather have hitherto been ascribed to the Ca-lifornian earthquake. The first report published here (says the New York correspondent of the ' Central News ') that 'the Stream was flowing backwards were naturally treated in the press with levity, "but later advices have modified these yarns, and now arrives Captain Quick, of the Morgan liner 'El Alba, 1 to give what is probably the real state of affairs. He says :— ' After passing the Lights on Sombrero Key, in the Strait of Florida we should have begun to feel the help of the Gulf Stream. When we did not reach Alligator Reef ™ ir ty-five miles farther, until nearly one o'clock in the afternoon I could not account for it. The screw was making sixty-eight revolutions, which drives her at fourteen knots, but it had taken half an hour longer than usual. Between two other points, thirtyfour miles apart, we lost another half-hour.' The captain concluded that the Gulf Stream, instead' of setting north-east at the usual speed of a knot and ahalf, was setting westward at the same rate of progress. Captain Quick proves his assertions in a most categorical way, but has no theory to account the phenomenon, though he is, like many athers, inclined to give the earthquake credit for his experience.