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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



whose families cancer appears to be heredi- 

 tary, should choose for their permanent 

 residence high, dry sites. During the last 

 twenty years no less than 100,000 women 

 died from cancer in England. 



Professor Cohn, of Breslau, has been 

 making experiments with the electric light 

 on the eyes of a number of persons, for the 

 purpose of ascertaining its influence on vis- 

 ual perceptions and color-sensations. He 

 finds that letters, spots, and colors are per- 

 ceived at a much greater distance through 

 the medium of the electric light than by 

 day or gas light. The sensation of yellow 

 is increased sixty fold compared to day- 

 light, red six fold, blue two fold. Eyes 

 which can only with difficulty distinguish 

 colors by day or gas light, are much aided 

 by the electric light. 



A curious survival of an old-time insti- 

 tution exists in some remote places in Eng- 

 land, viz., the official ale-taster. The ale- 

 taster takes an oath to " try, taste, and 

 assize the beer and ale put on sale " in his 

 district " whether the same be wholesome 

 for man's body." The old ale taster's meth- 

 od of " analyzing" beer for the purpose of 

 detecting the addition of sugar to the liquor 

 was rather primitive. Like most men in 

 those times, he wore leather breeches, and, 

 when he went to test the ale for the pres- 

 ence of sugar, a pint of fluid was spilt on a 

 well-cleaned bench, and the taster sat upon 

 it till it dried. If, on rising, the seat of the 

 breeches stuck to the bench, then sugar was 

 present, but if not the beer was pure. 



In the Himalayas, says " Das Ausland," is 

 found a plant of the family Aroidece, which 

 strikingly resembles a cobra with its head 

 erect : it is known as the cobra-plant. The 

 half-moon-shaped markings on the cobra's 

 head, and the lines on its neck, are imitated 

 in the flower-sheath of the plant, while the 

 tongue-like elongation of the pistil and of 

 the midrib of the flower-sheath serve to in- 

 crease the resemblance of the plant to a 

 living animal. Indeed, so striking is this 

 resemblance, that on coming upon it un- 

 awares a person instinctively recoils with 

 horror. 



Professor Emerson Reynolds, of Dub- 

 lin, has discovered a new explosive, com- 

 pounded of two substances, which can be 

 kept apart without risk, and can be mixed 

 as required to form a blasting agent. The 

 powder is a mixture of seventy-five parts 

 of chlorate of potassium with twenty-five 

 parts of " sulphurea," a body discovered by 

 Professor Reynolds, which can be obtained 

 cheaply from a waste product of gas manu- 

 facture. The new explosive is a white pow- 

 der, which can be ignited at a lower tem- 

 perature than gunpowder, and leaves less 

 solid residue. 



A first trial has recently been made at 

 Woolwich, England, of a new gun having 

 the following dimensions : Length, 36 feet ; 

 diameter at breech, 6 feet 6 inches ; diame- 

 ter at muzzle, 2 feet 4 inches ; depth of 

 bore, 33 feet; caliber in powder-chamber, 

 19f inches ; caliber at muzzle, 17f inches. 

 The gun weighs a hundred tons, carries a 

 shot weighing one ton, and the first time it 

 was fired received a charge of 440 pounds 

 of powder. 



A report of the Medical Department of 

 the Russian Army shows that, of the 1,400,- 

 000 boys registered as having been born in 

 1855, there were living in 1876 only 610,000, 

 or 43^ per cent. 



A " vert peculiar, if not unique " case 

 of albinism is recorded in the " Lancet." 

 The subject is a girl of eleven years of age, 

 having pink eyes, with the usual photopho- 

 bia, but hair of a bright-red color. 



A new process for making artificial 

 stone, invented by Ternikoff, is thus de- 

 scribed in "Le Monde de la Science": A 

 mortar consisting of equal parts of lime and 

 sand is exposed for a few hours to a tem- 

 perature of 150 Centigrade in the presence 

 of water-vapor. The paste having been 

 taken out of the furnace is now passed un- 

 der the cylinders of a machine like that 

 used for molding bricks, and it comes out 

 in the form of cubes which, on being ex- 

 posed to the air, become dry and hard. In 

 the course of eight or nine hours these 

 cubes are as hard as good building stones, 

 and are fit for use. This artificial stone is 

 in fact a sort of brick of mortar baked at a 

 low temperature, and the cost, too, is about 

 the same as that of bricks. 



In the Rotorua District, New Zealand, 

 are several hot springs, one of which at 

 least differs essentially from any other ther- 

 mal spring of which we have any knowl- 

 edge. This is Tapui Te Koutu, a pool 

 eighty feet deep, with a temperature of 90 

 to 100 when the wind is westerly or south- 

 erly ; but, if a change of wind to north or 

 east takes place, the water rises four feet 

 and the temperature to 180 ! Turi-Kore 

 is a waterfall with a temperature of 96 to 

 120, and is in high repute among the Mao- 

 ris for the cure of all cutaneous diseases. 

 Kuirau, 136 to 156, is so soft that clothes 

 can be washed in it without soap. Koro- 

 teoteo, a boiling spring, 214, is known as 

 the " Oil-bath." Kauwharga, a powerful 

 sulphur-bath, bears the name of the " Pain- 

 killer." Ti Kute, the Great Spring, three- 

 quarters of an acre in extent, boiling furi- 

 ously and always throwing off great clouds 

 of steam, is reported to be " wonderfully 

 efficacious in cases of rheumatism and cuta- 

 neous diseases." 



