Science Notes.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 11, 1 August 1884, Page 2

Science Notes.

The Telephone has been successfully used by a Frenchman to communicate between two vessels, one of which was towing the other. The wire was carried along one of the hawsers, and the circuit was completed through the copper on the bottom of ships, and the water. Conversation was carried on distinctly.

Professor Radriszcwski has been making experiments upon the “ Pelagia noctiluca,” one of the phosphorescent jelly fish of the ocean. Having dried 180 specimens, he dissolved out of the residue a peculiar kind of fat, this mixed with potasso, or pure potash, gave out when shaken phosphorescent flashes. The living animal when at rest is not luminous, but if shaken or rubbed it flashes. The remarkable feature of the case is that these creatures supply light without heat.

At the recent meeting of the “ French Societie d’Encouragement pour ITndustrie Nationale,” M. G. Meyer, of Paris, submitted specimens of paper specially manufactured to resist fire. The papers and documents shewn had been for four hours in a retort in a pottery furnace. Those present were unable to distinguish, either by appearance or texture, the papers so treated, from others which had not undergone the ordeal of fire.

M. Dumas recommends water saturated with alum for extinguishing fires, its value being supposed to be due to the coating it gives to objects wet with it, which prevents contact with the oxygen air, and thus diminishes the rapidity of the combustion. The Minister of the Interior has recommended that the firemen of the French towns be supplied with facilities to use such solutions of alum. Professor Mattieu has made similar experiments with the same results, and gives it as his opinion that it may lead to a revelotion in artificial light. Pie thinks that we need not despair of solving the chemical problem of transforming mutton suet, or palm oil, or vaseline, into glow worm or notiluca fat ; and that these will supply the artificial light of the future.

Dr. Carlos Finlay, of Havana, maintains that yellow fever may be communicated from one individual to another by the agency of mosquitoes. He has seen under the microscope spores and filaments of a particular nature on the sting of one of these insects that had just bitten a patient suffering from yellow fever and thinks that the germs may undoubtedly be introduced into a healthy individual by the bite of a mosquito. He recalls the fact that these insects were remarkably numerous in Philadelphia at the time of the yellow fever epidemic of 1767, and states also that the same conditions of temperature arc necessary for the life of the mosquito as for the existence and spread of yellow fever.

M. Paul Bert, the eminent French biologist, has been investigating the origin of sugar in milk. Two theories exist for explaining this phenomenon, one of which supposes that it is formed in the gland itself from lactogenic or milk forming matter ; the other supposes that it comes from the blood, and is merely stored in the breasts of animals. M. Bert has experimented with cows and she goats, and found beyond a doubt that sugar of milk is introduced by excretion in the breasts from sugar formed in excess by the animal. The sugar is apparently first formed in the liver, but whether it appears in the form of laCtose, or glycose, afterwards transformed into ladtose in the breasts, is yet a moot point which M. Bert has not investigated.

Attention has been directed of late to the experiments made by M. Pan chon on the limits of hearing, the result being communicated to the French Academy of Sciences. The notes were produced by a powerful siren ol the kind invented by Cagniard-Hatour, and actuated by steam. It seems that the highest audible notes produced in this way had 72,000 vibrations per minute, M. Panchon has also vibrated metal stems fixed at one end and rubbed with cloth powdered with colophane. In diminishing the length of the stem the sharpness of the note is increased. Curiously enough, he finds that the length of stem giving the limiting sound is independent of its diameter; and for steel, copper, and silver, the lengths are in ratio to the respective velocities of sound in these metals—that is, as 1.000 for copper, 1.002 for steel, and 0.995 f° r silver. Colophane appears to be the best rubbing substance.

At Ekhmeem, a large provincial town of Upper Egypt, situate about half way between Assiout and Thebes, Professor Maspcro, returning from his annual trip of inspection up the Nile, has just found a hitherto undiscovered and unplundered necropolis of immense extent. As far as has been yet ascertained, the necropolis dates from the Ptolemaic period ; but as the work of exploration proceeds it will probably be found that it contains more ancient quarters. The riches of this new burial field would meanwhile seem to be almost inexhaustible. Five great tombs or catacombs already opened have yielded 120 mummies, and within the short space of three hours Professor Maspero verified the

sites of over 100 more similar catacombs, all absolutely intadt. The necropolis of Ekhmeem, at a rough estimate, cannot contain fewer than five or six thousand embalmed dead. Of these perhaps not more than 20 per cent, will turn out to be of archaeological or historical value ; but the harvest of papyri, jewels, and other funeral treasures cannot fail in any case to be of unprecedented extent. Ekhmeem, is the ancient Khemnis—The Panopolis of the Greeks. Its architectural remains are insignificant.