SCIENCE, INVENTION, DISCOVERY. 



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discovered in India, and introduced into 

 Europe by the Moors about 1150. Its use in 

 Ireland dates back, to about the same time, but 

 it was not introduced into England until the 

 close of the century. When first made, 

 whisky was used as a medicine ; and direc- 

 tions for making usquebaugh, or aqua vitae, 

 are contained in the " Red Book of Ossory," 

 a volume compiled in the fourteenth century, 

 in which it is described as a panacea for all 

 diseases. The name whisky was at first given 

 by the Scotch Highlanders to the liquor which 

 they distilled from barley only, and had not, 

 until later times, its present more general 

 application. Usquebaugh was a Celtic name 

 for the liquor, from which the word whisky 

 is no doubt derived. 



Wire. The invention of drawing wire is 

 ascribed to Rodolph of Nuremberg, about 

 1410. Mills for this purpose were set up at 

 Nuremberg in 1563. The first wire mill in 

 England was erected at Mortlake in 1663. 

 The astonishing ductility, which is one of the 

 distinguishing qualities of gold, is no way 

 more conspicuous than in gilt wire. A cylin- 

 der of forty-eight ounces of silver, covered 

 with a coat of gold weighing only one ounce, 

 is usually drawn into a wire, two yards of 

 which weigh only one grain ; so that ninety- 

 eight yards of the wire weigh no more than 

 forty-nine grains, and one single grain of gold 

 covers the whole ninety-eight yards. Eight 

 grains of gold, covering a cylinder of silver 

 are commonly drawn into a wire 13,000 feet 

 long ; yet so perfectly does it cover the silver 

 that even a microscope does not discover any 

 appearance of the silver underneath. 



X or Rontgen Rays are a newly dis- 

 covered form of energy that is radiated from a 

 highly exhausted discharge tube, and devel- 

 oped by an electrical discharge. The rays are 

 so called for their discoverer, Prof. W. C. 

 Rontgen of Wurtzburg, who gave them the 

 name " X rays " because he was ignorant of 

 their precise nature, the letter " X " being the 

 usual algebraic symbol for an unknown quan- 

 tity. The Rontgen rays resemble ordinary 

 light in being propagated in straight lines, in 

 being capable of reflection, in causing phos- 

 phorescence, and in affecting a sensitized plate. 

 They differ from it in being invisible, in not 

 being capable of refraction or polarization, and 

 in being able to traverse many substances 

 that are opaque to ordinary light. The phe- 

 nomena caused by the passage of electricity 

 through exhausted tubes have long attracted 

 attention . It was noticed by Faraday in 1837 , 

 and by Plucker, in 1858, who was the first to 

 cause apparatus to be made whereby a practi- 

 cally permanent vacuum could be maintained 



in a glass bulb. The physicist Crookes im- 

 proved the tube and made many experiments 

 with "cathode rays." The discovery of 

 Rontgen was announced in 1896 as a new form 

 of radiation. The discovery was accidental, 

 and was made by observing that a highly flour- 

 escent substance with which he was experi- 

 menting gave out light whenever a neighbor- 

 ing Crookes tube was excited, though this 

 tube was covered with an opaque cloth. The 

 phenomena differed from cathode rays, and it 

 was found that when the human hand was 

 interposed between the tube and a photo- 

 graphic plate, the new rays caused a marked 

 shadow picture of the skeleton to appear on 

 the plate. Nothing but a shadow picture was 

 possible owing to the fact that the rays are 

 capable of but slight reflection. Extraordi- 

 nary and widespread interest was at once 

 aroused, but the purely scientific interest was 

 for the time being overshadowed in the public 

 mind by the sensational announcement that a 

 means of " seeing through " the human body 

 had been devised. Notwithstanding these 

 exaggerations, experimenters in all countries 

 verified Prof Rontgen's own claims. 



The shadow pictures are used for a great 

 variety of purposes, such as locating foreign 

 bodies, examining fractures and malformations 

 of bones, in dental surgery, and in detecting 

 adulterations. The rays have also been util- 

 ized in France for the study of fossils. 



Zodiac, The, is the name given by the 

 ancients to an imaginary band extending 

 around the celestial sphere, having as its me- 

 sial line the ecliptic or apparent path of the 

 sun. The signs of the zodiac embrace the 

 twelve important constellations which, owing 

 to the motions of the earth, appear to revolve 

 through the heavens within a belt extending 

 nine degrees on each side of the sun's apparent 

 annual path, and within or near which all the 

 planets revolve. Since the sun appears suc- 

 cessively in each of these constellations during 

 the year, the zodiac was divided into twelve 

 equal parts, corresponding to the months. 

 These signs and their subdivisions were used 

 in measuring time, and as a basis of astro- 

 nomical and astrological calculations and predic- 

 tions. Astronomers now, for convenience, use 

 these signs, giving to each constellation an ex- 

 tent of thirty degrees, although the constella- 

 tions vary in size. These signs are Aries, 

 representing the ram ; Taurus, the bull ; Gem- 

 ini, the twins ; Cancer, the crab ; Leo, the 

 lion ; Virgo, the virgin ; Libra, the balance ; 

 Scorpio, the scorpion ; Sagittarius, the archer; 

 Capricorn us, the goat; Aquarius, the water- 

 bearer, and Pisces, the fishes. On the 20th of 

 March the sun enters Aries, and at midnight 



