Science.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 365, 7 May 1903, Page 7

Science.

HARD ON THEIR NERYES. vWRKHE -New York Sun' thinks that American women have to pay ■ ZJBLs dearly for the privilege of pre- .. V " | empting the middle of the road to literary glory. It says that according to Dame Rumor 'Kate Douglas Wiggiu is hovering on the verge of nervous prostration. Frances Hodgson Burnett Townsend has toppled quite over the verge and is recuperating in a sanitorium. Mary Hart well Gather wood, whose novel * Lazarre' is among last season's successes, is in a hospital.' TO BBIGHTEN STEEL. As a restorative for steel beads such as are used for steel bags, purses and the like that are liable to discoloration, especially if exposed to sea air, the following is highly recommended.- ' Bnrn alum, pound it fine, sift through a coarse -musliH and apply dry with a soft brueh. BREAD AS A CLEANSER. During a visit to an army post I picked up n new wrinkle from the soldiers, says a writer in " Good Housekeeping.' They use a crust of bread often to clean the white stripes of their trousers. This I find is an excellent idea when applid to light felt hats, gloves or even a woollen gown. HEART OF THE HAILSTONE. If it were not for the countless trillions of dust particles that float, separately invisible, in the atmosphere, says the • Youth's Companion.' there could be no rain drops, snow crystals or hailstones. From a perfectly ductless atmosphere the moisture would descend in ceaseless rain without drops. The dnst particles serve ss nuclei about which the vapour gathers. The snow crystal is the most beautiful creation of the aerial moisture, and the bailstone is the most extraordinary. The heart of every hailstone, as Mr. Arthur. H. Bell shows in ' Knowledge,' is a tiny atom of dust. Such an atom, with a little moisture condensed about it, is the germ from which may grow a hailstone, capable of felling a man or smashing a window. But first it must be caught up by a current of air and carried to the level of the lofty cirrus clouds, five or six, or even ten miles high. Then, continually growing by fresh accessions of moisture, it begins its long plunge to the earth, spinning through the clouds, and flashing in the sun' like a diamond bolt shot from a ;> CANDY FIENDS. That candy has become the basis of a bad habit—like tea, tobacco, alcohol or icewater has long been. admitted by medical men; that its worst victims are not women, however, is not so well known, except to the owners of candy shops. The fact that one man bought and devoured 400 pounds of richest chocolates in one summer, and that this gastronomic was not looked upon as anything unusual by the candy clerks, will have some idea of the slavery to which the habitual candyeaters are committed. The man who consumed 'confectionery' by the hundredweight is youug and sound in mind and body. He generally yields to temptation immediately after luncheon although the craving sometimes becomes unendurable at an earlier hour. He estimates that the candy he has bought for personal consumption cost him .£SO last summer. He has been an unwilling victim for years, and has been frequently 'sworn off'—or attempted to. The last time was for three months, and when the self-imposed ewbasg* was raised he bought two pounds of mixed chocolates and ate them between lunch and dinner. A NEW DRINK. 'lt is not whisky in the stomach that makes a man drunk,' remarks Victor Smith. 'Therefore I have invented a new drink for burnt-out topers whose linings have been so charred that that "happy, tingling sensation is no more felt when fi?rc», liquid balls are rolled uader the belt, f One ounce of fine brandy; three ounces of pure water; mix; keep in an atomizer, and when you feel in the humor spray the nostrills, inhaling -bfiilny, so as to disperse the active principle throughout the right and left halves of the rhinencephalon. The instant the diluted brandy reaches the Schneidenan membrane the most hardened toper braces up, and when it strikes the base of the cribriform.: .plate of the ethmoid bone, which' is the ground floor of the brain cavity, he touches the drunkard's heaven. This invention makes a bottle of brandy last a month, and pieserves the stomach.