Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1904 — SCRAPS OF SCIENCE. [ARTICLE]

SCRAPS OF SCIENCE.

An electric pickpocket alarm has been invented by a man in. Manchester, England. Tbe experiments of Muller prove that if microbes be placed in a gnn barrel the wound made by a bullet fired from it would be infected by the microbes. . Commercial phosphorus is satisfactorily made by mixing the finely powdered phosphate material with carbon and sand in tbe electric furnace and then, when heated, distilling the phosphorus from the mass and collecting it underwater. Buch common substances as sugar, glucose and chalk having been found to absorb sunlight all day and to give It off in rays during the night, the discovery of some means for rendering these rays- useful in illuminating houses at night with little expense seems a possibility of the near future. The thorium atom, universally believed since its discovery by Berzelius three-quarters of a century ago to be a single and indivisible particle of matter, now appears as the progenitor of five new substances, even more elemental than itself, evolved by successive aud spontaneous changes within its substance. The scientific reason for the popping of com has been investigated by Professor Kraemer of Philadelphia, who finds that the endosperm is more or less translucent and homy and its cells contain closely arranged polygonal starch grains having a central rarefied area. Tbe degree of the expansion of these cells depends upon the relative amount of water and air in the grain. Of the world’s hay crop the United States grows 28,600,000 pounds." This is about half as much aa Germany and two-thirds as much as England.