Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1876 — MECHANICAL AND SCIENTIFIC. [ARTICLE]

MECHANICAL AND SCIENTIFIC.

—Prof. Poster Iras invented an instru ment for measuring small Intervals of tfaw by moans of the vibrations of\» tupr»‘ isg-m. —<?apt. Burton, ■who recently’ visited Use land of tl»e Pans, says they roast and eat portions of their enemies slain in battle as a quasi-religious rite. —A recent novelty in medical treat«aeht consists of the hypodermical injee'txous of pure or distilled water in cases of Theumatic or other local pain. Tliey are *9 bp applied immediately ovcK die part -affected in quantities of not less than two grams, the maximum being ten or twelve grams. Tliey are said to be almost always serviceable and never at all injuriods. „ , ~ -*-A French physician announces that distressing or excessive palpitation of the heart can almost always be arrested by bending double, the head down and the arms hanging, so as to produce a temporary congestion of the upper portion of the body. In nearly every instance of nervous or aaeunc palpitation the heart Immediately resumes its natural function. If the movements of yespiration arc arretted during this action the effect is still more rapid. —Dr. Bathurst Woodman, in an article contributed to the London Sanitary Record, directs attention to the fact that ginger beer, though usually considered a very Innocent drink, contains a percentage of alcohol about half as large as that found in the malt liquors in common use among the middle classes of society in England, and equal to that in many of the cheaper ales made in that country, aud the beer •drank in Germany and other parts of the <Joqtinent. —ln *a memoir by Ludicke he shows that ttic atmospheric pressure diminishes with the waxing ana increases with the wauing moon. The pressure is less at the perigree than at the apogee, anil in .general the effect of the moon upon the atmosphere is the inverse of that which it produces upon the ocean. The observations on which his results arc based extend over eight years; bin the actual effect af.themoonupo’n the barometric pressure, although uudecided, is yet exceedingly small. —The following pretty optical exmeriment is sent to Nature by Prof. P. E. Nlpher, of St. Louis; Observe a white cloud through a plate of red glass with one eye aud through green glass with the other eye. After some moments transfer both eyes to the red glass, opening aud -closing each eye alternately. The strengthening of the red color in the eye fatigued by its complementary green is very striking. The explanation of the phenomena is, of course, w ell known, and many modifications of the experiment will "readily -suggest themselves.