234 



BA Jin WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



of strychnine has been given thus within a few hours. 

 The .two poisons are antagonistic, and the character- 

 istic effects of the strychnine only show themselves 

 after the venom has been neutralised. The first 

 independent action of the drug is evinced by slight 

 muscular spasms, and the injections must then be 

 discontinued, unless after a time the snake poison 

 reasserts itself. So long as the latter is active the 

 strychnine can be applied in quantities which would 

 be fatal in the absence of the virus. Out of the 

 hundred patients treated this way, some of whom 

 were at the point of death, there was only one failure, 

 and that arose from the stoppage of the injections 

 after one and a quarter grains of strychnine were 

 administered. Any part of the body will serve for 

 the injection, but Dr. Mueller chooses a part near the 

 snake-bite. 



A NEW patented process for producing photo- 

 graphs in natural colours has been brought out. No 

 claim is put forward to the production of the colours 

 on the negative, a feat which if not impossible has 

 never yet been accomplished. What the negative 

 does is to portray the colours of the original in their 

 proper relative gradation of tone, which is a develop- 

 ment of the " ortho-chromatic " process, as photo- 

 graphers term it. Having obtained the negative, the 

 next step is to get a print. This print is made to 

 undergo a special treatment, mechanical in its nature, 

 by which it receives the required colours. Only the 

 primary colours are used, every shade and gradation 

 of tone being secured by the negative. No artistic 

 skill is needed to apply the colours, but how it is 

 done is not explained. The final step consists in the 

 "fixing" of the prints, by which the colours are 

 rendered absolutely permanent. The prints are made 

 waterproof in the process, and can be mounted on 

 paper, card, glass, opal, or other material. The 

 process is the invention of a French photographer, 

 M. Victor Mathieu. The means being mechanical, 

 the cost is but slightly in excess of the ordinary 

 monochrome prints. 



Mr. John Aitken has been investigating clouds 

 from the summit of the Rigi and Pilatus. He now 

 finds, as in former observations, that fog is intimately 

 dependent on the presence of dust particles in the air, 

 each of the invisible granules forming the nucleus of 

 a tiny head of water, these vesicles constituting in 

 the aggregat- clouds, mists, and their kindred. At 

 elevated situations the air is comparatively free from 

 dust, while lower down it is full of it. But while 

 clouds are passing over a peak the number ol 

 particles varies considerably. This, he discovers by 

 a series of carefully compiled data, is due to the fact 

 that the air entering into the clouds has forced itself 

 up from the valley below. Hence the mountain air 

 is pure or impure in exact accordance with the 

 amount of this lower-world current which has reached 



it. When the cloud vanishes the ether resumes its- 

 old composition. Another curious fact just dis- 

 covered by the same indefatigable observer is that 

 the moment a cloud forms it begins to discharge its 

 contents in the shape of a steady shower of minute 

 drops. These drops are not capable of being appre- 

 ciated by the unassisted senses ; but by the " fog- 

 counter," an instrument of Mr. Aitken's invention, 

 the exact number falling on a given space can be 

 readily noted. What is still more curious is that 

 though the air is in such circumstances saturated with 

 damp, seats, stones, and other large objects near the 

 earth are perfectly dry, the drops being evaporated 

 by the radient heat of the ground ; but a pin's head 

 or other small object, not offering the same area, is in 

 these circumstances often covered with a minute 

 globule of water. The fact of a cloud thus beginning 

 to rain small drops whenever it is formed may 

 account for the disappearance of these vaporous 

 masses without any change in the wind or tempera- 

 ture. They gradually exhaust themselves. 



M. Janssen, the enterprising French astronomer, 

 is not satisfied with the hope of building an astro- 

 nomical observatory on the summit of Mont Blanc, 

 for which the depth of snow is now being sounded by 

 a horizontal tunnel ; he aims at establishing another 

 at Tashkend, in Russian Turkestan, where the skies 

 are of a remarkable purity. The Governor of 

 Turkestan has found the money, and is taking an 

 intelligent interest in the work. Observations of 

 the spectroscope will be one of the specialities of the 

 place. 



The specific influence exerted by the eucalyptus- 

 tree on fevers has long been well-known. Whole 

 districts in Algeria and other countries which were 

 formerly mere haunts of malaria are now, since the 

 "blue-gum" has been planted, perfectly healthy. 

 In Australia it has been found that green branches 

 placed in a room act as a powerful disinfectant. In 

 cases of scarlet fever, if the branches be placed under 

 the bed, the bedding undergoes a thorough disinfec- 

 tion, the volatile vapour penetrating and saturating 

 the mattress and every other article in the room. 



Herr Prausnitz has recently collected the dust 

 in various compartments of trains, which often 

 convey patients from Berlin to Meran, and inocu- 

 lated a number of guinea-pigs with it. Two out of 

 five compartments so examined were found to 

 contain the phthisis bacillus ; the dust of one 

 rendered three out of four guinea-pigs tuberculous ; 

 that of the other, two. 



The action of sea-water on cements has been 

 investigated by M. Candlot with important practical 

 results. He finds that the sulphate of lime derived 

 from the decomposition of the sulphate of magnesia. 



