Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1892 — POPULAR SCIENCE NOTES. [ARTICLE]

POPULAR SCIENCE NOTES.

The new science of experimental psychology aims at measuring the mental capacities of men ns the anthropometrist measures their physical capacities. The “Drunken Sea.”—One of the most extraordinary of the natural phenomena of the Mcditerannean is called the “Marobia"—from two words signifying the “drunken sen,”—-and is produced by the meeting, between Trapini and Cupe San Mario, of a southeast with a westerly wind. It is best observed off the southern coast of Sicily. It is heralded by a lurid overcast sky and an ominous stillness; the waters of the sea then heave, rush up on the adjacent shores, and almost immediately retire to their usual level. This action is continued rapidly and constantly for periods ranging from thirty minutes to more than two hours, and while it lasts tho fish are said to float helplessly on the surfacA Eoos in the Industries.—The industries in which eggs are now employed comprise an important and widely divergent range—calico printing, photography, gilding, clarifying various liquors, bookbinding, etc. A large business, aceording'to Bradstreet, lias sprung up in the preparation of photograph!* paper with suited albumen, and one establishment alone is said to nave used more than two million eggs in six months for this purpose. Many attempts have been made to find a vegetable cr animal substitute for albumen, but in vain; thus, a prize of large amount, offered thirty yours ago by an English society, for the discovery of a material or process of replacing albumen In calico printing, still remains untaken. Nor arc tho yolks used in manufacturing, wholly wasted; they also are employed in the arts, and a manufacturer in Vienna somo time since commenced the business, on a commercial scale, of solidifying them, thus adapting them to easy conveyance uud convenient use. , Might Explain Memory.—A maker of theso “test plates” named Webb many years ago made for the Army Medical Museum at Washington a specimen of microscopic writing on glass, says tho Lens. This writing consists of tho words of the Lord’s Prayer, and occupies a rectangular spaco measuring 1-244 by 1-441 of an inch, or an urea of 1-120,054 of a square inch. Tin? lino of this writing are about us broad as those on tho test plates, which are 1-50,000 of an inch apart. They are, therefore, about us wide ns average light waves. Now, then, to get some idea of the magnitude or minuteness of this writing. There are in tho Lord’s Prayer 227 lettors, nncl if, as here, this number occiL pies the 1-120,, 054 of an inch, there would be room in an entire square inch for 20,4111,458 such letters similarly spaced. Now, the entire Biblo, Old and New Testaments, contains but 8,500,480 letters, and there, would, therefore, bo room enough to write the entire Bible eight times over on one square inch of glass, in the same manner ns tho words of the Lord’s Prayer have been written on this specimen. Such a statement, without doubt, staggers the imagination, but tho figures arc easily verified and are certainly correct, and the whole statement at least serves to bring home to us the limited nature of our mental capacities as compared with the facts of the universe. It also furnishes an interesting suggestion in a very different subject. It has been often stated that a physical basis of memory may exist in permanent structural moaifleation of the brain matter constituting the surface of the furrows. In a highly developed brain this surface amounts to 840 square inches, audit would, therefore, appear that the entire memories of a lifetime might be written out in the English lauguage on such a surface in characters capable of mechanical execution, such as those of the Webb plate at Washington.