POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



575 



cliano-e, since the effect is immediate in 

 charging and discharging. Neither can 

 electric pressure cause it, because that 

 must be the same on both sides of the die- 

 lectric, and a diminution of volume would 

 be the result. Again, it is not due to the 

 polarity of the armature, for on reversing 

 the poles the effect is the same. 



Sheep poisoned at Pasture.— If we re- 



trard the masses of its bloom, and the ex- 

 ceptionally exquisite form of its blossoms, 

 probably no flower can equal the kalmia, or 

 American laurel. All this is appreciated 

 in Europe, and the plant holds a distin- 

 guished place in its gardens. But at home 

 this fine shrub bears the execration of all 

 shepherds and herdsmen, as it is poisonous 

 to the sheep. Next to Australia, if not 

 equal, in sheep-raising, is Colorado. Un- 

 happily, a poisonous mallow {Malvastrum 

 coccineum) is found growing from Iowa 

 across the great Plains westward. Last 

 October a sheep-raiser named Ruble, in 

 Pueblo, Colorado, had the ill luck to have a 

 flock get into a patch of this terrible weed, 

 and twelve hundred sheep perished in four 

 hours! Another plant in Colorado, the 

 dreaded "loco" of the stock-men — the Oxy- 

 tropis Lamberti — is also noted for its poison- 

 ous qualities. 



A PrecoeioHS Century-Plant. — There is 

 now (January) a fine century-plant {Agave 

 Americana) in full bloom, in the conserva- 

 tory of John Hoey, Esq., at Hollywood, 

 Long Branch, New Jersey. This plant is 

 only twelve years old. The notion of this 

 aloe only blooming when a hundred years 

 old is simply a tradition of the elders. It 

 all depends on the environment and chiefly 

 temperature. Blooming at the age of fifty 

 years is common. To get the plant into 

 bloom at twenty-five years is considered 

 quite satisfactory by the gardeners, but this 

 instance of one flowering at twelve years, in 

 a conservatory, must be accounted as unique. 



The Proportion of Oxygen in the Upper 

 Air. — Though oxygen is heavier than nitro- 

 gen, and therefore ought to fall to a lower 

 level in the atmosphere than the latter gas, 

 still, no difference has ever been found to 

 exist in the relative proportions of the two, 



even at the greatest attainable altitudes. 

 Up to such elevations the agitation of the 

 air suffices to keep its componenta uni- 

 formly mixed. Whether there is any want 

 of uniformity at still greater elevations is 

 an open question, the solution of which has 

 been attempted by Professor Edward W 

 Morley, of Hudson, Ohio. Accepting as pro- 

 visionally correct the theory proposed a few 

 years ago by Professor Loomis, that great 

 and sudden depressions of temperature are 

 sometimes owing to the vertical descent of 

 cold air from elevated regions of the atmos- 

 phere. Professor Morley inferred that sam- 

 ples of air taken at the earth's surface dur- 

 ing a great and sudden lowering of temper- 

 ature might have come from altitudes where 

 the proportion of oxygen had been lessened 

 by the action of gravity. He has therefore 

 made numerous analyses of air during " cold 

 waves," and the result has been invaria- 

 bly to show deficiencies in the proportion 

 of oxygen in the air at such times. 



New Colorings Matters.— The chemists 

 Savigny and Colineau have discovered a 

 method of obtaining innocuous coloring 

 matters from the red cabbage. This sub- 

 stance is known as cauline, and is useful in 

 painting, for printing fabrics, and for dyeing. 

 The process is as follows : Cut the interior 

 of the cabbage and the stalks of the leaves 

 in small pieces and place them in boiling 

 water in the proportion of one and a half 

 kilogramme of leaves to three litres of wa- 

 ter. The infusion is left about twenty-four 

 hours to macerate, then the leaves are taken 

 out and submitted to pressure to squeeze 

 out the water, which is added to the liquid 

 infusion ; this cauline is of a violet-blue 

 color. It forms the base of a series of de- 

 rivatives which constitute the precipitates 

 of various colors. For instance, to obtain 

 barucauline, two grammes of baryta are 

 added to five hundred grammes of cauline 

 cold ; this produces a clear green dye. To 

 obtain chlorocalcicauline, which is a bluish 

 green, one hundred grammes of anhydrous 

 chloride of calcium are added to half a kilo- 

 gramme of cauline. A false bronze color 

 is obtained by adding one hundred to five 

 hundred grammes chloride manganese and 

 five grammes baryta to five hundred 

 grammes cauline ; this is called mangocau- 



