116 



POPULAR SCIENCE :N"EWS. 



[August, 1889. 



each end. The calling snake asks a traveller, 

 "Where are you from, and whither are you bound?" 

 If he answers, the snake follows him for miles, and, 

 entering the hotel where he is sleeping, raises a 

 fearful stench. The hotel proprietor, however, 

 guards against this by putting a centipede in a box 

 under the pillow, and when the snake gives forth 

 the evil odor, the centipede is let out, and, flying at 

 the snake, instantly kills him with a bite. The fat 

 of this snake, which grows to a great size, makes 

 oil for lamps and produces a flame which cannot be 

 blown out. In Burmah and Cochin-China is a 

 snake which has, in the female sex, a face like a 

 pretty girl, with two feet growing under the neck, 

 each with five fingers, exactly like the fingers of a 

 human hand. The male is green in color, and has a 

 long beard ; it will kill a tiger, but a fox is more 

 than a match for it. 



THE ERA OF THE AZTECS. 

 The period of fifty-two years formed a complete 

 era for the Aztecs, and they questioned whether at 

 the end of that period the great heavenly clock, hav- 

 ing performed its revolution, might not stop forever. 

 This era menaced a considerable number of the pop- 

 ulation once in their lives, and some of them per- 

 haps twice. The night on which the fifty-second 

 year would expire was a solemn moment to them, 

 and was signalized by extinguishing the sacred fires 

 in the temples and those on private hearth-stones, 

 and by breaking all vessels that had contained pro- 

 visions ; and the evening was passed in darkness, 

 with trembling and fear. The day was in Novem- 

 ber, when the Pleiades would culminate at mid- 

 night, and this moment was the termination of the 

 century. As the hour appeared, the human victim 

 was sacrificed, and the sticks were rubbed over his 

 still quick body for striking the fire tor his funeral 

 pile and the inauguration of the new era. Men 

 were waiting with torches ready to be lighted, with 

 which the new fire was to be distributed to all the 

 provinces. The moment of midnight was hailed 

 with shouts of joy. The world had not come to an 

 end, and men could hope that it would last at least 

 through another era. Those who could not attend 

 the public ceremonies watched kneeling on the 

 roofs of their houses. The secular festival was sup- 

 pressed by the Spaniards, the last human victim 

 having been sacrificed on the pyramid of Tlaloc in 

 1507. — Popular Science Monthly. 



RED PEPPER. 



The Journal de la Chamhre de Commerce de Con- 

 stantinople says that the cultivation of the red-pepper 

 plant occujiies a very important place among the 

 several branches of cultivation practised in Turkey. 

 This cultivation is chiefly making progress in the 

 cantons of Karadja Abad, in the districts of Vardar 

 Yenidje and of Vedine, vilayet of Salonica. For- 

 merly the production of red pepper was unimpor- 

 tant, for it was limited to the requirements of local 

 consumption in the vilayet; but, since foreign 

 countries have bought these peppers, cultivation 

 has rapidly extended. The plant itself prefers a 

 sandv and humid .soil, where it grows sometimes 

 almost in the water. It is estimated that the plant 

 produces from 120 to 400 okes (oke^2.84 pounds) 

 of pepper per deunum (deunum = 40 square paces), 

 according to quality. On an average, the expenses 

 do not exceed 300 gold piastres tor the cultivation of 

 each deunum ; and an oke of this pepper costs from 

 30 paras up to 5V2 piastres, according to quality. 

 The profit realized on the average is from 300 to 

 350 piastres per deunum. Harvesting only com- ! 

 mences when the plants are entirely red. The pro- 

 duce of the first gathering is of superior quality: ^ 

 but that of the last is bad, as the pepper plant red- 1 



dens imperfectly in the autumn. This year the 

 yield of red pepper has reached, in the canton of 

 Yenidje Karadja Abad, the figure of 350,000 okes, 

 and in that of Vedine Karadja Abad, about the same 

 amount. Of this yield, 45 per cent, is exported to 

 Europe; 30 per cent, to Bulgaria, Servia, and 

 Austria-Hungary; the remainder being sent to dif- 

 ferent parts of the Turkish Empire. 



OXALIC FERMENTATION. 

 IIerr W. Zoi'f records the discovery of a remark- 

 able Saccharomyces, to which he gives the name S. 

 Hanaenii, in which the power of producing alcohol 

 is replaced by that of producing oxalic acid. It was 

 cultivated on beerwort gelatine and flesh-peptone 

 gelatine, which it softened without liquefying. On 

 beerwort, sugar solutions, mannite, etc., it produces 

 a pellicle which is rapidly precipitated. Cultivated 

 on a solid substratum it produces endogenous spores, 

 usually only one, less often two, in each mother- 

 cell. Scarcely a trace of alcohol could be detected 

 in the fluids in which this microbe had been culti- 

 vated, while, on the other hand, crystals of calcium 

 oxalate were formed, sometimes in very large quan- 

 tities, in the same way as with other well-known 

 producers of oxalic acid, such as I'enicilHum and 

 Scterotinia. The production of crystals of oxalate 

 was obtained from the following carbohydrates, 

 viz. : Galactose, grape-sugar, cane-sugar, milk- 

 sugar, and maltose, also from dulcite, glycerine, and 

 mannite. It is possible that the further investiga- 

 tion of this interesting organism may throw light 

 on the so common production of crystals of calcium 

 oxalate in the form of raphides in plants. 



FLAPPING OF A FLY'S WINGS. 



In his book — On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelli- 

 gence of Animals — Sir John Lubbock records some of 

 his later observations, among which are these : 



The slow flapping of a butterfly's wing produces 

 no sound, but when the movements are rapid a 

 noise is produced, which increases in shrillness 

 with the number of vibrations. Thus the housefly, 

 which produces the sound F, vibrates its wings 

 20,100 times a minute, or 335 times a second; and 

 the bee, which makes a sound of A, as many as 

 26,400 times, or 440 times in a second. On the con- 

 trary, a tired bee hums on E, and, therefore, accord- 

 ing to theory, vibrates its wings only 330 times in a 

 second. 



Marcy has succeeded in confirming the.se numbers 

 graphically. He fixed a fly so that the tip of the 

 wing just touched a cylinder, which was moved by 

 clockwork. Each stroke of the wing caused a mark, 

 of course very slight, but still quite perceptible, and 

 he thus showed that there were actually 330 strokes 

 in a second, agreeing almost exactly with the num- 

 ber inferred from the note produced. 



METEORITES. 

 From an exhaustive study of the large collection 

 of meteorites at Harvard College, the conclusion 

 has been arrived at, that many of the masses of 

 meteoric iron now known are cleavage crystals, 

 broken off', probably, by the impact of the mass 

 against the atmosphere. It is found that these 

 masses show cleavings parallel to the planes of all 

 the three fundamental forms of the isometric or 

 regular system. From all that appears, the theory 

 has come to be entertained that the masses of 

 meteorites were thrown oiT from a sun among the 

 fixed stars, and that they were slowly cooled while 

 revolving in a zone of intense heat. 



Siberian Meteors. — Foreign scientists have dis- 

 covered minute diamonds in meteorites found in 

 Siberia. 



SCIENTIFIC BREVITIES. 

 A Curious Experiment in Osmosis. — Take two 

 eggs of equal size. Carefully dissolve the shell of 

 one with dilute hydrochloric acid, and immerse it in 

 pure water. In the course of a day or two enough 

 water will pass through the outside membrane to 

 cause it to nearly double its volume, as may be 

 shown by comparison with the second egg, which 

 is used as a standard. 



An Interesting Fact. — If sodium sulphate is 

 allowed to crystallize between plates of unglazed 

 porcelain in the open air, and if the crystallization 

 is reproduced two or three times by sprinkling with 

 water, the plates fall into powder. The same phe- 

 nomenon is observed with very hard stones. This 

 crystallization may be a cause of the comminution 

 of rocks which resist water. 



Another Use for the Phonograph. — While 

 the deepest tone that our ears are capable of recog- 

 nizing is one containing sixteen vibrations a second, 

 the phonograph will record ten vibrations or less, 

 and can then raise the pitch until we hear a repro- 

 duction from them. Similarly, vibrations above 

 the highest rate audible to the ear can be recorded 

 on the phonograph, and then reproduced by lower- 

 ing the pitch until we actually hear the record of 

 those inaudible pulsations. 



Long Distance RiFLE-i-iRiN(i. — Experimental 

 firing with the new British military rifle at ranges 

 beyond 2,000 yards has given the following results: 

 The targets were small field fortifications, ten yards 

 long. The firing, volleys by about thirty men, was 

 almost wholly from direction, sighting being impos- 

 sible, owing to the hazy weather ; yet at 2,000 yards, 

 out of 370 shots there were 159 hits ; from 367 shots 

 at 2,400 yards there were 96 hits; and from 269 

 shots at 2,800 yards there were 104 hits. Penetra- 

 tion at the extreme ranges had been thought doubt- 

 ful, but some bullets at 2,800 yards struck an iron 

 target, and were broken to pieces. 



A Photographing Phonograph. — M. Leon 

 Esquine, a Mexican, it is stated, has perfected a 

 marvellous invention in electricity and photogra- 

 phy. By speaking in a photophone transmitter, 

 which consists of a highly-polished diaphragm, re- 

 flecting a ray of light, this ray of light is set into 

 vibrations, and a photograph is made of it on a 

 traveling band of sensitized paper. Now comes the 

 wonderful part. If the image of this photographic 

 tracing is projected by means of an electric arc or 

 ox^hydrogen light upon a selenium receiver, the 

 original speech is then heard. It is evident that 

 there is no limit to the development of this peculiar 

 combination of methods. This is very important — 

 if true. 



A House-fly Epidemic. — A common appearance 

 upon window panes in autumn is that of dead flies, 

 each surrounded by a cloudy spot. These insects 

 are the victims of a bacillus or microscopic fungus, 

 whose scientific name i« Empusa musca, which is 

 nearly related to the mould which attacks bread, 

 and also to the silk-worm fungus so much dreaded 

 by silk culturists. In autumn the spores of Empitsa 

 muscee, floating in the air, come in contact with the 

 soft bodies ol the flies, into which they sink their 

 roots, or, rather, develop that branching, net-like 

 growth known as mycelium. As the growth extends 

 through the body the insect loses the power of 

 flight, and settles down to die on the window pane. 

 The fungus continues its growth in the dead body 

 and scatters its spores in all directions, fctrming the 

 cloud-like spot which surrounds the insect. Other 

 flies visit the pane, and the spores find lodging be- 

 tween the abdominal rings and in other unprotected 

 parts of their bodies, and thus the disease spreads, 

 sometimes to an enormous extent. 



