POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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Liverpool and other ports at which diseased 

 animals were landed became centers of con- 

 tagion. The history of this disease is only 

 one example out of many in the list of mala- 

 dies to which animals are liable. The study 

 of Mr. Fleming's histories induces the con- 

 viction that hardly a creature in any way 

 connected with man, or coming under our 

 observation, is free from liability to hosts 

 of plagues, or has not its full share of spe- 

 cial or common troubles. Mr. Fleming's 

 work is published in England. 



Wind-Sounds in tlie Desert. — The trav- 

 elers' tales of sounds like the ringing of 

 bells, which they have heard in deserts and 

 lonely places, are familiar. Some of thera 

 are too well substantiated to admit of seri- 

 ous dispute. Among them is that of the 

 noises heard at the Gebel Nakus, in the 

 Sinaitic Peninsula, which the Arabs say pro- 

 coed from a convent of damned monks; 

 the musical cliffs of the Orinoco, told of by 

 Humboldt ; and the sounds which the French 

 savants Jollois and Devilliers declare they 

 heard at sunrise at Karnak, Egypt, and de- 

 scribed as comparable to the ancient fable 

 of the vocal Memnon. The sounds are not 

 always or exactly like the ringing of a bell ; 

 sometimes they resemble the music of a 

 string, and may be generally described as of 

 an intermediate character between the two 

 classes. A characteristic of the sounds is, 

 that no one can discern where they come 

 from. M. ^mile Sorel, Jils, in order to deter- 

 mine their origin, has made some successful 

 experiments in reproducing them artificially. 

 Taking his gun into an open field, he placed 

 it at an angle of 45° against the wind, when 

 it gave forth a sound. Then moving it 

 around, he caused it to utter the exact tone 

 he sought. The sound could not be local- 

 ized. Addressing a peasant, he asked him, 

 " Do you hear my gun ? " " Pardon, mon- 

 sieur, it is the bells of ." A similar 



answer was got from every one whose at- 

 tention was called to the noise. It was be- 

 lieved to come from about two miles and a 

 half to the windward. M. Sorel believes 

 this experiment authorizes the hypothesis 

 that the ringing is the result of the blowing 

 of the wind over a slope at the foot of 

 which is something that may act as a reso- 

 nator. What is done on a small scale in a 



gun may be done on a large scale in nature, 

 on the face of a mountain or a rock which 

 is backed by a valley or a ravine, or which 

 is itself elastic enough to give the resonant 

 effect. The sounds are apparently not as 

 readily given when the vibrating surfaces 

 and media are moist. 



Artificial Drying of Fodders. — A prac- 

 tical, economical apparatus for artificially 

 drying fodder-crops might be the means of 

 effecting immense savings to farmers in bad 

 seasons for hay-making. Mr. William A. 

 Gibbs has described before the British So- 

 ciety of Arts two such apparatuses which, 

 he claims, accomplish the object at a cost 

 that makes their use profitable. His own 

 apparatus, which he has spent many years 

 in perfecting, is in its primitive and simplest 

 form a stove or furnace for burning coke, 

 to which is attached a fan for blowing the 

 hot air resulting from the combustion — of 

 a temperature that may rise to 520° — 

 through the wet grass. An exposure of 

 from four to six minutes is sufficient to con- 

 vert each lot of grass — the proportion of 

 which is adapted to the force of the blast — 

 into hay. This has been developed into a 

 machine of eleven tons weight " which, when 

 in action, eats up a one-horse load of coke, 

 draws off ten to fifteen tons of water, and 

 converts twenty great cart-loads of wet rub- 

 bish into good stack-hay in a single day's 

 work." The perfected machine has a sys- 

 tem of giant forks and flat iron plates, kept 

 in rapid action, through which the wet grass 

 is shaken down in successive stages while it 

 is permeated through and through with the 

 hot air. Another process, the invention of 

 Mr. Neilson, is for cooling hay in the stack, 

 and uses the heat which is developed in the 

 natural process of "heating," to dry the 

 whole. A hole six inches in diameter is 

 bored through the stack to the point at 

 which the greatest heat is developed, and a 

 fan fixed at the outlet of the hole is made 

 to draw off the heat from that point and 

 promote the ventilation and drying of the 

 whole mass. Mr. Gibbs believes that these 

 processes are about equal in value, and that 

 their value is real. He also described a 

 " sheaf-tube " for drying sheaves of wheat. 

 It is " like a gun-barrel open at both ends, 

 and about eighteen inches long ; such tubes 



