SCIENCE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3050, 5 April 1881, Page 3

SCIENCE.

A correspondent of the English Mechanic writing from Pretoria, in the Transvaal, speaks with much enthusiasm for the frequency of the zodiacal light in that part of Africa and. the beauty of its appearance. He says he first observed it at Durban in Natal, on May 30th, 1879, and has seen it on almost every clear night since then when the moon was absent. The air in the Transvaal region is wonderfully clear and transparent, and the constant visibility of the zodiacal light there is probably due to this quality of the atmosphere. There is so little watery vapor even close to the earth, that stars shine brightly down to the instant of their disappearance below the horizon, instead of growing dimmer and dimmer, as is ueually the case here and in Europe. In opening the winter session of the London Institution Dr. Lionel S. Beal, F.R.S., delivered a lecture upon the germination and propagation of disease. He dwelt particularly upon the conditions which were favorable and unfavorable to the dissemination of particles capable of transmitting diseases. Wind, he said, and water in motion, were both adverse to their multiplication; hence the importance of ventilation and of an abundant supply of running water in the houses. He mentioned an important safeguard which ought never to be neglected whenever the milk supply is suspected of conveying disease-germs— that is to boil the milk for ten minutes.

The Eoyal Geographical Society of England will probably soon recommend a further exploration of the North Polar regions by a government expedition, following a route through Franz-Joseph Land. One of the discoverers of the land, Lieutenant Julius Payer, has lately abandoned the pursuit of geographical science, and established himself as a painter in Munich. His former associate, Lieutenant Weyprecht, still keeps up an active interest in Artie discovery, and is conspicious among the advocates of the plan for encircling the pole with, a series of scientific observing stations, to be maintained by the various governments whose domains extend within the Artie circle.

The value of alkali waste as a fertilizer has lately been pointed out in England by Mr G-ossage, a member of the Farnworth Agricultural Society. This substance is produced in the "Widnes district at the rate of a thousand tons a day. It consists of the sulphide and sulphate of calcium, the first of which is destructive of weeds and noxious insects, while the second (gypsum) fixee ammonia and affects clayey soils in Bucb. a manner as to render the potash which they contain capable of being taken lip by vegetation. Considerable time should be allowed to elapse after the application of alkali waste before the land is sown with seed.

The Paris Temps newspaper has lately called attention to a remarkable fraud which is being practised by dealers in fruit jellies. The common seaweed which comes from China and Japan as packing material surrounding porcelain and similar goods yields, when properly treated with water, a transparent jelly, which may readily be sweetened ■with glucose and colored to imitate any color which would bo derived from fruit. This substance, so prepared, is sold as genuine fruit jelly, greatly to the detriment of the health, of the consumers. The seaweed coots little more than the expense of transportation from the East. Mr W. T. Blanford, the well-known geologist who wrote up the scientific observations of Lord Napier's Abyssinian Expedition against King Theodore, has suggested that the sandstones in Central Africa may really be river deposits instead of having been formed in an enormous lake, as is conjectured by Mr Joseph Thomson, to whose views on this subject we have recently referred.

Trains are now regularly moved over a distance of six hundred and fifty feet by electric engines on a short branch of the Turin ftnh Modena railway, connecting

that line with some mills. For this distance the motive power is said to be loss expensive than steam, and quite as efficient. Why could not similar engines be employed on the marine railway on Coney Island ?

In a paper on the care and cure of the insane, contributed to the Lancet by Dr. Robert Boyd, the author says that his experience for several years in the St. Marylebone Infirmary tends to confirm the correctness of the view of Penel, that the greatest number of recoveries from madness take place in the first month of its duration.

An elecfrical rock-drill has been patented in Germany. It seems probable, however, that this invention will not wholly replace the compressed air method employed for tunneling purposes, inasmuch as the introduction of air into tunnels during the process of excavation is absolutely essential to proper ventilation, Captain Edmund H. Verney, of the British Navy, questions the correctness of Mr A. R. Wallace's statement that the climate of Vancouver Island is not so mild as that of London. He commanded a gunboat in that region for three years, and thinks Vancouver enjoye much the milder climate.

The question whether the meat of animals which have snffered from pleuro-pneumonia is fit for human food, and should be allowed to be 9old in the markets, has recently come before the Metropolitan Board of Worke in London. No conclusion had been reached on the subject at latest advices.

A new species of insect, belonging to the same genu3 as the wheat-destroying Hessian fly, has appeared in India, and is doing g>reat damage to the rice crops in Monghyr, a district of Bengal. It has been named the Ceciclomgia oryzee or rice-fly.

In order to cheapen the production of quinine in Italy an effort is to be made to acclimatize the cinchona tree there. The annual consumption of quinine in that country is twenty-two thousand five hundred pounds.

Meat preserved with dextrine, according to a new process described before the Paris Academy of Sciences by Mons. Senre, has remained unaffected by exposure to the open air continuously during a period of twenty months.

One of the November meteors observed at Montealieri in Italy is described as larger than the planet Jupiter, shining with an intense blue light, and being followed by a bright train of the same color..