OCR Text |
Show SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY. Grapes exposed to sunlight contain according to Dr. A. L. de Vallanova three and three-fourths per cent less acid than those which have remained in darkness. The city of Paris has granted a piece of ground in the park of Montsouris for a school of insectology. The useful insects (such as bees and silkworms), the auxiliary insects (or those useful to plants) and the noxious insects will all be studied. The gathering in of cloth stretched in large bleach-fields is a new European application of the electric railway. The pieces of cloth are connected at the ends so as to form long lengths, and the railway trucks roll up as much in half an hour as could be done by the old method in an entire day. The present increase of the population of England from excess of births over deaths is about one and a half per cent a year; and Proctor computes that if the world had started with one million inhabitants 5,000 years ago (an estimate probably far too low) and had made a uniform increase at that rate, the earth's present population would be 213,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Even if the world's population had been only ten 4,000 years ago, and the same rate of increase had been kept up that is now in progress in England, the number would now be so great that 12,000,000,000, such globes as this earth would only give standing room for the vast population supposing the entire surface of each globe to be occupied. French Government commissions seem to favor attempting the formation of an Algerian sea by flooding the Sahara, notwithstanding objections made. The failure of seeds to grow during the cold season proves that a higher temperature is necessary for their germination, and it is a very natural supposition that the best results are to be obtained when the heat has been raised to as high a degree as possible without destroying the seeds. Prof. H. ?? shows that this is far from being the case with all seeds. In an experiment repeated several times he has obtained a much more rapid growth from almond and walnut seeds in a house kept at a temperature varying during the twenty four hours from 41 to 89 degrees Fahrenheit than in a house heated to 50 to 77 degrees. Furthermore, the plants started in the warm house were earlier arrested in their development than those from the pool house. A further study of this subject might lead to valuable results in showing the most favorable temperature for hot houses for the various kinds of seeds, and of pointing out the plants which cannot be profitably succeed in hot houses. Plateau, the eminent French naturalist, finds that a June bug can exert as great a force in proportion to its size as a locomotive. English microscopics have given various facts showing that human subjects have been in many cases infected with ??, a much-dreaded worm parasite, by mosquitoes. These parasites breed in countless numbers in the human body, usually invading the circulation in the evening, increasing till midnight, and then retiring to other parts of the system. The curious ideas concerning natural phenomena entertained by the Japanese a few decades ago are illustrated by a work teaching of "Heaven and Earth" written in 1821 and just translated into English. According to this work, the earth and the heavens are governed by a male and female principle. Rain is a changed form of the male principle and the vapor under the earth of the female. When the rain sinks into the earth it pursues the female principle. The earth is the mother of all things, and the heaven is the air or wind in which the shining sun, moon and stars are hung. The heavens move from east to west-contrary to the motion of running water, which flows from west to east. Some of the water in the earth flows to the north, where it is turned into vapor by the earth-air, and forms clouds which are in turn changed to rain by the wind. In the male season, or summer, the quantity of water increases; while it diminishes in winter-the female season. Thunder is produced by the mingling of the male and female principles. A kind of beast is said to move in the air with the thunder, which is not considered strange because at a certain island about ten thousand miles from Japan there is a bird which is covered with fur, instead of feathers, and eats fire. Earthquakes are subterranean thunder. Snow is vapor which has become frozen; fog is also this vapor; haze is the vapor mixed with volcano smoke. The writer promises in conclusion to make the actions of nature-such as rain, wind, etc.-quite clear at another time. Such was Japanese science among the educated classes a half century ago. |