128 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



points of suspension can freely move, thus 

 permitting the pendulum to swing in one 

 plane or nearly so. The spectator will no- 

 tice that the pendulum changes its line of 

 oscillation as regards the floor beneath, but 

 if he understands the questions to be an- 

 swered, he will know that it is the floor, and 

 himself with it, that is carried round, while 

 the pendulum continues to oscillate in one 

 plane, or nearly so. 



It has been observed by a French phy- 

 sician, De Renzi, that the paroxysms of 

 those suffering from lockjaw are always more 

 frequent and more violent by day than by 

 night, and he has noticed the same fact in 

 frogs poisoned with strychnine. He has 

 further observed that the paroxysms are 

 more intense when the animals are freely ex- 

 posed to light than when they are kept in 

 darkness, and that frogs poisoned by weak 

 doses of strychnine die on being roughly 

 shaken, but live when left in a state of com- 

 plete repose. On these results M. de Eenzi 

 bases a new system of treatment for cases 

 of lockjaw; it is as follows: The patient is 

 shut in a perfectly dark room, and the door 

 is opened very gently every four hours to 

 give food and drink. The external auditory 

 meatus are sealed with wax. Every hour (?) 

 soup or an egg, with two spoonfuls of sherry, 

 is given from a cup with a spout to it. A 

 little powder of belladonna and ergot is 

 given to appease the paroxysm. The floor 

 should be covered with a carpet. 



Books taken from circulating libraries 

 for the use of convalescents may easily be- 

 come the vehicles of contagious diseases, and 

 it is much to be desired that some effectual 

 method could be devised of disinfecting vol- 

 umes which have been so used. Until this is 

 done, circulating libraries would do well to 

 caution their patrons against the danger, and 

 to request that the books be not used where 

 such diseases exist. In these days of cheap 

 publications it is easy to obviate this peril by 

 procuring for the use of the sick low-priced 

 volumes, to be destroyed after they have 

 been perused. 



M. Schiaparelli, during the last oppo- 

 sition of Mars, made observations of the 

 position of the south-polar spot, as was also 

 done by Prof. Hall. The method adopted 

 by the latter was to measure the angle of 

 position of the spot from the centre of the 

 disk. M. Schiaparelli made his measures by 

 placing the wire of his micrometer tangent 

 to the limb of the planet at the middle of 

 the spot. The latitude and longitude (areo- 

 graphic) of the spot are : 



= 29.47 , s 6 = 20.66 m , 



A = 6.15 ^ > \ = 5.18 ^ 



For 1877, Sep. 27.0 G. M. T. 



The planting of trees in the streets of 

 towns is condemned as unsanitary by a writer 

 in the Lancet, on the ground that fresh air, 

 Nature's great deodorizer, is checked in its 

 movements by the foliage. In the narrow, 

 tortuous lanes and pent-up courts, where the 

 poorer part of the population live, anything 

 that interferes with the freest possible cir- 

 culation of the air must be injurious to 

 health. 



Dr. J. A. Campbell, writing in the Brit- 

 ish Medical Journal, favors recourse to sum- 

 mary proceedings in the treatment of " fast- 

 ing girls," i. e., young females who, under 

 the influence of hysteria, believe themselves 

 to possess the miraculous power of living 

 without food or drink. The hysterical man- 

 ifestations, he says, can be overcome by 

 the stomach-pump, " and with our present 

 knowledge no more fasting girls should be 

 permitted to occur.' 1 ' 1 



In Texas camels are raised as easily as 

 horses and cattle. The colts of the first 

 three or four days are rather tender, and 

 require close attention, but afterward they 

 are hardy enough. They feed on cactus 

 and brush, refusing all grasses. The females, 

 with proper care, give a colt every year. 



. It is commonly supposed that the softer 

 a bar of steel is, the better is it able to en- 

 dure strains and shocks causing vibration. 

 But experiments made by Mr. W. Metcalf, 

 of Pittsburg, show in fact that hard steel 

 suffers less from vibration than soft. Mr. 

 Metcalf's attention was first drawn to this 

 subject by the constant breaking of steam- 

 hammer piston-rods. Those made of ordinary 

 steel lasted only six months. Then lower and 

 lower steels were tried, and broke in about 

 five months. Once it happened that a rod 

 of comparatively high steel was employed, 

 which held out for over two years. This 

 totally unexpected result led to systematic 

 experiment which confirmed the conclusion 

 stated above. 



Of " trials of endurance " now so much 

 in vogue, the latest is that undertaken by a 

 Mr. Murphy, of Kern, California, who talked 

 incessantly for twenty-four hours, with a rest 

 of five seconds in each hour for the purpose 

 of taking a drink of whiskey. At the conclu- 

 sion of his task, Murphy fell from his chair, 

 but whether this was the result of exhaustion 

 or of intoxication could not be determined. 



Experiments have lately been made in 

 Germany to determine the value of the com- 

 mon nettle as a textile fibre. The weed 

 having been treated in the same way as 

 hemp, yielded a fibre as fine as silk and as 

 strong as hemp-fibre. A considerable area 

 of ground is now planted with the nettle in 

 the Prussian province of Nassau. 



