Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1875 — Organisms in the Atmosphere. [ARTICLE]

Organisms in the Atmosphere.

A brief record of the studies of Mr. C. H. Blackley on the connection between the pollen of grasses and hay asthma is given in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science. The observations were continued from April to the end of July. By means of a slip of glass coated with a non-dying liquid, and exposed horizontally, the quantity of pollen grains present in the air of a meadow at the breathing level was daily estimated. The greatest number was obtained June 28, wlipn 880 grains settled upon a surface of a square centimeter in twenty-four hours. Sudden diminutions in the quantity of pollen were occasioned by rain, together with a fall in the temperature. By the use of a kite strata of atmosphere were examined to the height of 1,000 feet. Pollen was found to be much more abundant in the upper levels than at the breathing level, Lie proportion being as ten to one. Fungoid spores were found in the air in large quantities. In one experiment the spores of a cryptogam were too numerous at the height of 1,000 feet to be counted, but were reckoned at a rough estimate to be not less than 30,000 or 40,000 to the square inch. By a series of experiments it was proved that these organisms travel considerable distances through the air.

—Uncle Reuben Mock leaves in a few days for a big hunt and fishing spree in the State of Texas. Uncle Reuben is eighty-five years Old and like Moses his eye is not dim nor his natural vigor abated. He has a gun made by himself, lock, stock and barrel, which he will use on his trip. It is of elegant workmanship, carries a hall weighing forty to the pound, and Uhclc Reuben can plant that ball in the center of the target nine times out of every ten Shots. Woe to the buffalo and deer that stand in the range of his vision. Uncle Reuben thinks Texas only a neighborhood hunt—distance nothing—travel not a circumstance. —Springfield Kentuckian. Cs— A good story comes from Brooklyn. Dr Jerome Walker, one of the brighter medical lights of the new generation, had just been writing a letter at the dictation of a sick soldier. “ Ah, docthor,” said the sick man, just as the letter was being ‘closed, “.wad yer plaze ask ’em to excushe mistakes in spellin’ and writin’.”. The habits of old days were strong in death. A slab of quartz-rock was recently shipped from the Greene mine, Nev., containing more than two square feet, through which there was a streak about four inclines wide that was nearly or quite one-half gold. The piece was estimated to be worth at least $1,500. Many a woman who is too feeble to t>cel a dozen potatoes for dinner will walk four miles past a rival’s house to display new dress, and prance back home like a two-year-old filly.