Vol. XXIV. No. 3.] 
POPULAR SCIEIS'GE NEWS. 
J- 
25 
Slje Popular Science I^ews. 
BOSTON, FEBRUARY i, 1890. 
AUSTIN P. NICHOLS, S3., . 
WILLIAM J. ROLFE, LiTT.D., 
.... SiHtor. 
Attodate Editor. 
The principal object of scientific — and pop- 
ular — interest the past month has been the so- 
called Russian influenza, or "la grippe," 
which has overspread a large portion of the 
country, and numbered its victims by the 
thousands if not millions. There is really no 
explanation to be given of this remarkable 
epidemic, and the symptoms and general 
details of an attack are doubtless sadly familiar 
to most of our readers. There is some rea- 
son to doubt whether the present epidemic is 
really the true European disease, or a native 
production occurring coincidently with it. 
The first cases reported in this country, 
occurred almost simultaneously with the 
European ones, and it seems impossible that 
the infection could have crossed the ocean in 
so short a time. The first cases in this city 
occurred in the county jail — perhaps the most 
unlikely place in the whole city for an im- 
ported epidemic to make its first appearance. 
It is also stated that the United States war- 
ships encountered it in mid-ocean on their 
way to Europe, and that their crews were 
aflTected by it. We are afraid, however, that 
this entertaining yarn was spun for the benefit 
of the "marines." Whatever its source, the 
mild and harmless type of the disease is a 
matter for thankfulness, and, in spite of the 
persistent and reprehensible sensationalism of 
the daily press in regard to the matter, seri- 
ous or dangerous cases have been extremely 
rare. 
The phenomenal weather of the present 
season is amply sufficient to account for the 
epidemic, even if a similar disease had not 
appeared in Europe. Up to the time of writ- 
ing (Jaiuiary 15th) there has been neither ice, 
snow, nor frost of any consequence, and the 
weather of last winter has been exactly re- 
peated. Two such unusually mild winters 
occuring consecutively, have never been 
recorded before, and the etfect of the unsea- 
sonable warmth must be very injurious to the 
public health, not to mention the possibility 
of a total failure of the ice-crop, the harvest- 
ing of which is such an important New 
England industrv. 
The cause of this unusual mild weather is 
hard to explain. Of course the direct csiuse 
is the prevalence of warm southwesterly 
winds, and the absence of the cold northwest- 
erly gales which usually blow during the 
winter months ; but what determines the pre- 
valence of one wind over another is at present 
outside the limit of our knowledge. The 
story has gone the rounds of the press that 
the Gulf Stream has been deflected from its 
course and approached nearer to our coasts, 
but such a deflection would have but very 
little effect upon the climate of the sea-board, 
and none at all upon that of the interior of the 
country. Both our warm and cold winds 
blow towards the ocean, and not from it. 
Besides, it is not true that the Gulf Stream has 
changed its course, and no observations have 
been made which would indicate that it is flow- 
ing in any other than its usual direction. We 
have heard this Gulf Stream theory advanced 
to explain unusually warm weather for the 
last twenty years, and never with any more 
basis of fact than at the present time. There 
is not the slightest reason to believe that any 
permanent change of climate is taking place, 
and the average temperature for any long 
period of years always remains about the 
same. 
M. MoissAN, who isolated the element 
fluorine a few years ago, has succeeded in 
forming an anhydrous platinum bi-fluoride 
(Pt Flj), by passing a current of fluorine gas 
over a bundle of platinum wires heated to 
dull redness in a tube of fluor-spar. At a 
bright red heat the compound is decomposed, 
and the reaction gives a comparatively easy 
method of obtaining fluorine. Very curiously, 
a dilute solution of platinum bi-fluoride in 
water may be kept for a few iniiuites with- 
out decomposition. Soon, however, it breaks 
up into hydrated platinic oxide, and hydro- 
fluoric acid. An analogous compound of 
fluorine and gold has also been obtained. 
Professor Simon, of Johns Hopkins 
University, has been investigating the peculiar 
power possessed by a young boy in Baltimore,' 
of causing heavy objects to adhere to his 
fingers, when closely pressed upon them. 
The nature of the substance is of no conse- 
quence, but the adhesive power is greatest 
when they possess a clean, dry, and smooth 
surface. For this reason, the best results are 
obtained with glass and polished metals. A 
maximum weight of about five pounds has 
been lifted in this mysterious manner. The 
adhesive power is quite variable and uncertain 
in its action, and a careful microscopical 
examination of the boy's fingers shows no 
unusual or abnormal structure of the skin. 
Professor Simon, while admitting his inability 
to fully explain the phenomena, which he 
describes at length in a recent number of 
Science, considers that they are due prin- 
cipally to atmospheric pressure, and notes 
several circumstances connected with their 
manifestations which tend to confirm that 
theory of their cause. 
It has recently been discovered that sulphate 
of quinine possesses the power of rendering 
light non-actinic, and that a plate of white 
ground glass, which has been covered with a 
strong solution and allowed to dry, may be 
used in the photographic lantern instead of 
that of the ordinary ruby color. We have 
recently seen a bromide print developed by 
the non-actinic white light produced in this 
manner, which was perfect in every way and 
did not show the slightest trace of fogging. 
If future trials show the method to be a practi- 
cal one, the use of red light in photography 
will become a thing of the past. We shall be 
glad to hear from any of our readers who 
may make a trial of this peculiar property of 
the hitherto exclusively medicinal alkaloid. 
»*v 
Some genius out in Indiana announces that 
he has discovered a process of condensing and 
solidifying natural gas, so that it can be 
handled like coal, and that with the aid of a 
ten-horse-power engine he can reduce enough 
gas in one day to supply a city of fifty thous- 
and inhabitants with fuel for twenty-four 
hours. The readers of the Science News 
will hardly need to be reminded that this is 
an impossible achievement. The composition 
of natural gas is perfectly well known, and 
although it is possible by expensive and com- 
plicated apparatus to temporarily liquefy a 
a few grains of any gas, yet the process costs 
many thousand times its fuel-value, to say 
nothing of the fact that as soon as the exces- 
sive pressure and cold employed in the pro- 
cess are removed, the gas returns at once to 
its normal condition. The supply of scientific 
humbugs is unceasing, and vve often wonder 
what will be the next manifestation in that 
direction. 
Some experiments recently made by Mr. 
Baynes Thomson, upon the deviation of a 
pendulum when brougiit near to another 
body, lead him to believe that the generally- 
accepted theory of a mutual attraction of 
gravitation between all masses of matter is 
incorrect, and that the tendency of bodies to 
approach each other must be explained on 
other grounds than that of an inherent attractive 
property. He suggests that the position of 
two bodies in relation to each other is the 
determining fiictor, in that they screen each 
other from the bombardment of the molecules 
of the ether. This revolutionary theory is 
hardly to be accepted without further evidence. 
An inherent attractive force in matter is not a 
very satisfactory hypothesis to account for the 
phenomena of gravitation, but it is certainly 
more rational than an assumel bombardment 
of the supposed molecules of a hypothetical 
ether, the actual existence of which has never 
been proved. 
OLD PROVERBS FROM A SCIEN- 
TIFIC STANDPOINT. 
There is much true wisdom and scientific 
observation embodied in many popular 
beliefs and sayings, even when the logical con- 
nections between the premises and conclu- 
