640 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



phor-bronze respectively is shown by the 

 result of an experiment made under the 

 auspices of the Russian Government. The 

 experiment lasted for six months, and at the 

 end of that time it was found that the cop- 

 per (which was of the best quality) had lost 

 over three per cent, of its weight, while the 

 loss of phosphor-bronze was but little over 

 one per cent. 



In a lecture-room experiment suggested 

 by M. V. Meyer for showing increase of 

 weight by combustion, a candle is attached 

 to each pan of a balance, and above one a 

 glass tube open at both ends is hung at 

 nearly the height of the wick. In this tube 

 is a piece of wire gauze holding fragments 

 of caustic soda ; after balancing the candles, 

 one of them is lit, when the products of 

 combustion are retained by the soda, and 

 this end of the beam descends. 



That toads will eat bees, would seem to 

 be cleai'ly proved by the observations of M. 

 Brunet. As the bees of a hive were crowd- 

 ing in to escape from a rain-storm, some of 

 them rested on the grass in the vicinity 

 awaiting their turn to enter. M. Brunet saw 

 a toad busy in devouring these bees. He 

 carried the toad again and again to a dis- 

 tance of from thirty to fifty metres from the 

 hive, but sooner or later the animal was at 

 his post again, greedily devouring the bees. 



While investigating the hygienic prop- 

 erties of pine and eucalyptus, Charles T. 

 Kingzett found that by exposing a mechani- 

 cal mixture of water and turpentine to a 

 current of air at normal summer tempera- 

 ture, a solution containing hydrogen per- 

 oxide a powerful disinfecting and oxidiz- 

 ing agent and camphoric acid may be 

 readily obtained. This solution contains 

 no oil of turpentine, is non-poisonous, and 

 without harm to textile fabrics. 



It is noted as a curious fact by Sir 

 Samuel Baker that a negro has never been 

 known to tame an elephant or any wild ani- 

 mal. The elephants employed by the an- 

 cient Carthaginians and Romans were 

 trained by Arabs or Carthaginians, never 

 by negroes. A person might travel all over 

 Africa, and never see a wild animal trained 

 and petted. It had often struck Sir Samuel 

 as very distressing that the little children 

 never had a pet animal ; and, though he had 

 often offered rewards for young elephants, 

 he had never succeeded in getting one alive. 



At the meeting of the American Medical 

 Association, at Chicago, on June 5th, the 

 subject of the revision of the American 

 Pharmacopoeia, the proposed rejection of 

 the one in use, and the substitution there- 

 for of an entirely new, more modern and 

 complete work on that subject, was post- 

 poned indefinitely. 



The long-talked-of plan of heating a city 

 by steam, generated at one or more points, 

 and distributed by pipes, is at length about 

 to be practically tried at Lockport, New 

 York, where boilers and boiler-houses are 

 now erected. The working of this new sys- 

 tem will be watched with interest. The in- 

 ventor estimates that the saving to each 

 householder will be from thirty -three to 

 fifty per cent, of the present expense for 

 stoves, coal, etc. 



Remains of an enormous dinosaur have 

 been discovered in Colorado, and received 

 at Yale College, which, according to Prof. 

 Marsh, would indicate the length of the en- 

 tire animal to have been about fifty or sixty 

 feet ! Portions of the sacrum and of the 

 posterior limbs have been preserved ; the 

 last two vertebrse are nearly complete. 

 From all the indications. Prof Marsh con- 

 cludes that it was an herbivorous reptile, 

 and perfectly distinct from any species 

 known. He names it 2'itanosaurus mon- 

 tanus. 



From a study of no less than a hun- 

 dred and six epidemics of typhoid fever, 

 Jaccoud reaches the conclusion that the 

 disease is engendered by fecal matter ; but 

 that this matter is not typhogenic, that is, 

 does not of itself produce the typhoid symp- 

 toms, unless it incloses the specific poison 

 of the disease. There are, however, he ad- 

 mits, circumstances under which such mat- 

 ter is poisonous, without having had any 

 previous admixture of typhoid substances. 

 In such cases the poison is, he says, elabo- 

 rated in the fecal matter, which itself, as be- 

 fore, is merely an agent of transmission. 



In 1861, 1,500,000 pounds of Indian tea 

 was consumed in the British Isles ; three 

 years later the amount of this tea consumed 

 was 2,500,000 pounds; in 1867, 6,000,000 

 pounds; in IS'ZO, 13,500,000 pounds; in 

 18*74, 21,000,000 pounds; in 1875, 1Y,500,- 

 000 pounds; and in 1876, 19,000,000 pounds. 

 It is expected that the consumption for the 

 present year will be not less than 32,000,000 

 pounds, or one-fourth of all the tea con- 

 sumed in the United Kingdom. Indian tea 

 has always commanded the highest price in 

 the London market. 



In testing the comparative cxplosiveness 

 of nitro-glycerine, in the crystallized and the 

 liquid state, Beckerhinn used a drop-block 

 of wrought-iron weighing 2. 130 kilogrammes, 

 having at its lower end a hardened steel 

 point of Y.068 square millimetres. The 

 nitro-glycerine was spread in a thin layer on 

 a flat anvil of Bessemer steel, and the weight 

 was dropped from diiferent heights. The 

 liquor exploded at a fall of 0.'78 metre, but 

 the crystallized or frozen nitro-glycerine 

 only at 2.13 metres. 



