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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as these are stuck into sockets all over a 

 plate-iron floor, at just such a distance 

 apart as will enable a wheat-sheaf to be 

 comfortably spiked upon each tube. The 

 floor, with its small forest of tubes, is laid, 

 air-tight, upon a dwarf foundation wall of 

 about two bricks high, with a partition down 

 its center. The hot-blast is then blown into 

 the closed space thus formed between the 

 ground and the tube floor, and rises through 

 the tubes into the sheaves just where they 

 are wettest, viz., at the band. A simple 

 shunting valve directs the hot air first under 

 one half of the floor, and then under the 

 other, so that, while the sheaves on one half 

 are drying, the others may be lifted off and 

 replaced with more wet sheaves." 



Fogginess of Malaysian Ideas. Mr. D. 



D. Daly, who has been engaged in surveys of 

 the native states of the Malay Peninsula, says 

 that the natives show an almost total lack 

 of notions of definite points, and have only 

 the vaguest ideas with reference to the de- 

 termination of boundaries. " The boundary 

 of our state," said one, " extends as far as 

 the meeting of the fresh water, with the salt 

 water of the river " ; or, " If you wash your 

 head before starting, it will not be dry be- 

 fore you reach the place " ; or, " The bound- 

 ary may be determined on the river, as far 

 as the sound of a gun may be heard from 

 this hill." The shot might be fired from a 

 smooth-bore or from a twelve-pounder, or 

 a gale of wind might carry the report far- 

 ther than was contemplated. Such ambigu- 

 ous phrases were calculated to mislead, but 

 they were essentially Malaysian in their 

 generality. 



Electricity from Gas. A German pro- 

 fessor, Dr. Von Marx, has shown that more 

 light can be obtained from a given quantity 

 of gas by burning it in a gas-motor which 

 drives a dynamo-machine, than by burning 

 it in the ordinary burner. His estimate is 

 based on the following calculations : A gas- 

 motor will consume on the average thirty- 

 seven cubic feet of gas per hour for each 

 horse-power. An argand burner, giving a 

 light equal to eighteen candles, will consume 

 five and a half cubic feet per hour, so that 

 the amount of light obtained by burning 

 thirty-seven cubic feet of gas in an argand 



burner will equal one hundred and twenty 

 candles. In the Swan system of electric 

 lighting, the light obtained from each horse- 

 power (or by burning thirty-seven cubic feet 

 of gas) is stated to be equal to one hundred 

 and fifty candles. The light obtained by 

 the Edison lamp he gives as between one 

 and two hundred candles. Mr. Lungren, in 

 his paper in the September number of " The 

 Popular Science Monthly," estimates that 

 eight lamps can be maintained for each 

 actual horse-power, and if we make each 

 lamp equal eighteen candles, we have a total 

 of one hundred and forty-four candles per 

 horse-power, a gain of twenty per cent over 

 the use of an argand burner. When the. 

 Jablochkoff candle is used, the results are 

 much higher, each horse-power yielding a 

 light equivalent to four hundred and seventy- ' 

 two candles ; while other arc systems run 

 four or five times as high. In showing that 

 more light is obtained by burning thirty- 

 seven feet of gas in a gas-motor than by 

 burning it in an argand burner, Professor 

 Von Marx does not prove that it would be 

 economical to do so, for the margin, taken 

 as twenty per cent, is not sufficient to cover 

 the cost of converting gas into electricity, 

 so to speak. That the latent energy pent 

 up in illuminating gas should produce more 

 light when converted into electricity, not- 

 withstanding the loss at each stage of the 

 operation, than when burned directly, is ex- 

 plained by the fact that the larger part of 

 the energy of burning gas is manifest in the 

 form of heat, the lesser part in the form of 

 light. In electricity we have just the oppo- 

 site conditions. 



Transparent Points in Leaves. M. 



Theodore Bokorny has published a prize 

 essay in the University of Munich on the 

 "Transparent Points in Leaves." These 

 points, which are quite common in some 

 plants, mark the places where a group of 

 cells, containing resin or an ethereal oil, has 

 been collected. One of the most familiar in- 

 stances of this kind is that of the St.-John's- 

 wort (Hypericum perforatum), in which me- 

 diaeval superstition imagined a connection 

 between the lucid spots and the wounds of 

 Christ, and assigned a healing virtue to the 

 plant. In other cases the points in ques- 

 tion are caused by cells with a slimy coat- 



