Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1883 — SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY. [ARTICLE]

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

M Toussant finds that the virus of tuberculosis retains its power under conditions which completely destroy the germs of other contagious maladies. Is experiments with the. electric light in night military operations, made at Chatham, England, bodies of men were discovered at a distance of more than 1,000 yards. The hbm of a rhinooeroe, when cat through the middle, is said to exhibit on each side the rude figure of a man, the outlines being marked by small white strokes. Various cases of poisoning from the use of perfumes have been reported. In one instance some heliotrope perfume applied to the face of a little girl produced an erysipelas which lasted for a longtime. It was found on investigation that the scent was not made with the odoriferous principles of plants, but with some of the products of coal-tar. Thomas and Lugel recently exhibited an apparatus for measuring the rapidity 'of growth of a plant. The plant itself is connected with an index which advances visibly and constantly, exhibiting the growth on a scale fifty times magnified. When the index is connected with an electrio hammer, the ourrent of which is interrupted as the index passes over the divisions of the circle, the growth erf the plant becomes not only visible, but also audible to the ear. In this way it is now possible, literally, to “hear the grass grow.” Mb. Muybridge, the eminent San Francisco photographer, has exhibited his photographic marvels of Prof. Marey in Paris. He is now able to take a photograph in the hundreth part of a second. During a clown’s )bap he obtained six photographs, showing different positions. By means of an improved zoetrope, he projects such figures on a screen, thus exhibiting the motions of a clown in his somersaults, a horse at gallop, a hare coursing and even birds at flight, etc.— the pictures of the various positions as they pass in rapid succession across the screen, uniting to form tjm living figures. M. Plante has succeeded in engraving on glass by means of electricity. The process is as follows : The glass is laid in a horizontal position, and covered with a concentrated solution of nitrate of potash, the liquid being retained by a shallow vessel in whioh the glass is placed. A platinum wire is dipped in a horizontal position in the solution along the edges of the glass. The wire is attached to one of the poles of a secondary battery of fifty to sixty elements. The lines are traeed by hand with the point of an insolated platinum wire, connected with the other pole of the battery. The parts of the glass oovered with the alkaline solution become engraved when touched with the end of the platinum wire, however rapidly this is moved, the thickness of the lines varying with the thickness of the wire. The current from either pole may be used in the writing wire. “It is a marvelous circumstance,” says Dr. Brancroft, “ that the black man of Australia should have dropped upon the same narcotic principle (nicotine) as the red man of America.” Pituri is a plant of Cbntral Australia, not far removed from the tobacco plant. The leaves of the plant are chewed by the aborigines, wha trade with it extensively . Chemical analysis show that the alkaloid in which the peculiar poisonous properties depend is nicotine, the same substance tio whioh tobacco owes its effects* Pituri is eagerly sought by the native Australians, not for the purpose of ex* citing their courage or combativeness, but to produce a dreamy, voluptuous sensation, such as is experienced by the opium eater. It is often taken by the natives on their long marches to deaden the craving of hunger and to support them under excessive fatigue.