Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1888 — SCOEMTOFOC NISCELLANP. [ARTICLE]

SCOEMTOFOC NISCELLANP.

Jt Toraujrr finds flint th« virus at tabarcaloeis retains its power under oonstiko)s whioh completely destroy the germs of other oontagkxxs aatodfafc fir rnnnoDni with the electric tight 1,000 yards. Tn hen of a rhinoesroo, when eat through the middle, is said to exhibit oa each side the rode figure of a man, the oatUaee being merited by snaß whits Stroke*. Various eases of poiwfaf from tbs «se of perfumes have been reported In one snstanoe some heliotrope per* fame applied to the free of a tittle girl Sanaa an erysipelas whioh lasted far a time. H was found on inTeeflgatioa the soent was not made with tfrs odoriferous principle* of plants, bat with some of the produets of eoaMar. Thomas and Lagel recently exhibited ■a apparatus for measuring toe rapidity of growth of a plant. The plant Meant fr connected with an index whieh ad* Tanoee visibly and constantly, exhibiting the growth on a scale fifty times magnified. When the index is oonneoted with C electric hammer, the current of whieh interrupted as the index passes over the divisions of the circle, the growth of the plant beoomes not only visible, bat also audible to the ear. In this way it in now possible, literally, to "hear the grass grow.”

Mb. Mtjxbbzdob, the eminent Baa Trandsoo photographer, has exhibited hisph o tographio marvels of Prof. Many in Paris. He is now able to take a photo* graph in the hundrath part of a second. During a clown’s feap he obtained six photographs, showing different positions. Bj means of an improved zoe trope, he projeofr suoh figures on a screen, thus exhibiting the motions of a down in his somersaults, a horse at gallop, a hare ooursing and even birds at flight, eta—the pictures of the various pdtdtions as they pass in rapid succession across the screen, uniting to form living figures. M. Plant* has suooeeoed in engraving an glass by means of electricity. The prooess is as follows: The glass is laid in a horizontal position, end covered with e concentrated solution of nitrate of potesh, the liquid being retained by a shallow vessel in whieh the glees is nlaoed. A platinum wire is dipped in e horizontal position in the solution along the edges of the glass. The wire is attached to Me of fbe poles of e seoondary battery of fifty to sixty elements. The Hues are traced by hand with the point of an insolated platinum wire, oonneoted With the other pole of the battery. The parts of the glass oovered with the alkaline solution beoome engraved when iouohed with the end of the platinum wire, however rapidly this is moved, the thiokness of the lines varying with the thickness of the win. The ourrent from either pole may be need in th? writing win. "It is a marvelous droumstanoe,* •ays Dr. Brancroft, "that the black man of Australia should have dropped ujpon the same narcotic principle (niootme) ss the red man of America.” Pi tori is a plant of Central Australia, not far .amoved from the tobaooo plant. Tbs leaves of the plant an chewed by the aborigines, who trade with it extensively. Chemical analysis show that the alkaloid in which the peculiar poisonous properties depend is nicotine, the same substance to which tobaooo owes its effects. Pituri is eagerly sought by the native Australians, not for the purpose of exciting 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.