374 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ed with pepsin. " In order to remove this 

 bitter taste, I have made," says the patentee, 

 " very many experimental researches, and at 

 length have discovered that the purpose is 

 completely and, satisfactorily effected by the 

 addition, in a certain part of the process, of 

 a small portion of fresh pancreas." 



The fluid meat so prepared is entirely 

 free from any bitter flavor. One ounce is 

 the equivalent of 20 ounces of meat. 



Do Planets vary in Color 1 In a note 

 to the Royal Astronomical Society, Lieu- 

 tenant-Colonel Strange, F. R. S., suggests 

 that the changes of color which have been 

 observed at distant intervals in some of 

 the planets, may after all be an affair of the 

 optical instruments through which the light 

 is made to pass, rather than any real altera- 

 tion in the aspect of the planet itself. That 

 optical instruments do sometimes give the 

 impression of a color different from that 

 belonging to the object from which the light 

 proceeds, appears from the following, which 

 we quote from Colonel Strange's communi- 

 cation : 



" I was, within the last few days, at a 

 theatre with two young ladies. They drew 

 my attention to ' the lady opposite in pink.' 

 Turning my glass to her, I replied, ' You 

 mean the lady in yellow.' 'No,' replied 

 both, ' her dress is pink.' Having ascer- 

 tained that we all spoke of the same person, 

 I begged my companions to use their glass- 

 es. On doing so they both at once admit- 

 ted the color to be yellow, as I had said. 

 But they assured me that to their naked eye 

 it was pink as before. One of the young 

 ladies, my own daughter, is considered to 

 have a remarkably fine eye for color, with 

 the faculty of matching and remembering 

 tints very strongly developed. The other, 

 also a near relative, is likewise an excellent 

 judge of color, and a born artist. The 

 dress about which the above doubt arose 

 was not all colored. It was white, with 

 a great deal of the doubtfully-colored trim- 

 ming, and the tint (whatever it really may 

 have been) was very pale. There was 

 strong light upon it, and the distance was 

 that of the whole greatest diameter of a 

 small theatre. Such are the facts, on which 

 I do not propose to theorize. But they cer- 

 tainly point at least to one practical consid- 



eration namely, the influence of optical 

 power on color impressions, and the neces- 

 sity of great caution in pressing observa- 

 tions on the color of heavenly bodies into 

 the service of speculations regarding cos- 

 mical changes." 



Of the three elements form, size, cole* 

 Colonel Strange believes that color il 

 the least permanently fixed in the " senso- 

 rial memory ; " so that, even if the light 

 reached the eye of the observer unchanged, 

 the comparison of a recent color-impression 

 with one that was received a long time be- 

 fore must at best give but a doubtful result. 



A New Writing-Machine. The Median. 

 ics 1 Magazine figures and describes a new 

 form of writing-machine, the invention of 

 the Rev. Mailing Hansen, superintendent of 

 the Royal Deaf and Dumb Institution of 

 Copenhagen. The machine is designed for 

 rapid writing, and is also capable of being 

 used by the blind. The work is done by 

 means of a series of keys, moved by the 

 fingers something in the same way as the 

 keys of a concertina, each key leaving the 

 impress of its proper letter or character on 

 the paper below when it is struck by the 

 finger. The keys are so disposed that the 

 imprint of each type, when struck, is di- 

 rected to, and received upon, a central spot, 

 over which the blank paper is made to 

 travel by means of suitable machinery. 



Besides offering great facilities for copy- 

 ing purposes, the machine- is said to rival 

 stenography as a means for reporting 

 speeches or taking down dictated composi- 

 tion. Rapid writing rarely exceeds four 

 letters per second, while in ordinary speak- 

 ing from nine to ten, and in rapid speech 

 from fifteen to twenty, letters are uttered 

 per second. Thjs machine, with a little 

 practice, enables the operator to take down 

 an average of twelve letters per second, and 

 an expert manipulator can considerably ex- 

 ceed this. The instrument is in use in Lon- 

 don, .and its performances are said to be 

 very satisfactory. 



Weather- Waste of Coal. The Engineer 

 states that Dr. Varrentrapp has made the 

 weather-waste of coal the subject of an 

 investigation, and as a result asserts that 

 the amount of loss suffered by coal from 



