62 



;CIENCE. 



[Vol. XVI. No. 391 



this has just come to hand from the storm at Bradshaw, 

 Neb. This tornado passed over a tank ten feet long-, three 

 feet wide, and twenty inches deep, full of water. This tank 

 was air-tight, and had an opening in the top one foot square. 

 The observer reports that the tornado sucked all the water 

 out of this tank. A moment's reflection will show that this 

 could have been done only by the insertion of the funnel 

 into the opening one foot square. Of course this is absurd, 

 and we must resort to some other explanation of the phenom- 

 enon. 



11. After the tornado has passed, note the appearance of 

 the houses for explosive effects. 



12. Pay pai'ticular attention to the direction of the trees, 

 making a separate observation on the south side, in the 

 centre, and on the north side. See if any debris or objects 

 have been carried in any case toward the west or south-west 

 on the north side of the track, and measure the distance. 



13. A note should be made of the width of the greatest 

 destruction, not including houses unroofed on the borders; 

 also the length of the path where it was most destructive, 

 and the distance from the point at which it first struck the 

 earth to the point at which it left the earth during the time 

 of the greatest destruction. 



14. Give the names of persons killed, if any. 



15. Give an estimate of the loss to buildings, also specify- 

 ing the number of buildings destroyed and their characters 

 as to strength, etc. 



16. A note should be made of the rainfall, — whether it 

 was most abundant before, during, or after the tornado; 

 also, if possible, the amount of rain at the centre of the 

 track and at some point two thousand or three thousand feet 

 on either side. 



17. Careful note should be made of hail, size of stones, 

 width of track, situation with respect to the main track, etc. 



18. After the tornado the direction of the path should be 

 most carefully determined. 



19. All evidences of corks flying from bottles should be 

 carefully looked for. 



20. If one has a barograph, its record will be of the ut- 

 most value. If one has a barometer, an observation should 

 be made by some one every minute till the tornado has 

 passed. If the barometer is an aneroid, the face should be 

 gently tapped before each observation. A steady watch of 

 the needle may show any sudden fluctuation too rapid to be 

 caught by reading the barometer. This instrument may be 

 read in a dug-out or a cellar as well as in a house. 



Of course, every one will keep eyes and ears open for any 

 and all phenomena to be noted in this remarkable outburst. 



H. A. Hazen. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



In Science of July 25, second column, 36th line from the bot- 

 tom, " cenoreus" should read " cinereus.'' 



— A census taken in St. Petersburg in December, 1889, proved 

 that during the previous twelve months the number of inhabitants 

 had increased by 25,006, and had attained to a total of 1,003,315, 

 says The Scottish Geographical Magazine. Attention is drawn to 

 three noteworthy points regarding the population: the first is that 

 the increase is greater in the suburbs than in the heart of the city; 

 in tlie second place, the ratio of women to men has increased 

 during the last twenty years, probably in consequence of a greater 

 demand for female labor; lastly, since 1885 the births have been 

 more nun erou& tlan the deaths, by 3,750 yearly. 



— Some discussion has been going on in Ceylon over the ques- 

 tion of the language spoken by the Veddahs, the aborigines of 

 that country. The subject, says the Colonies and India, would 

 seem to be one well worthy the attention of philologists; and the 

 brothers Sarasin, who have been pursuing their anthropological 

 researches in Ceylon, express the opinion, that, if a philologist 

 were to take tlie matter up. great service would be rendered to all 

 those engaged in the work of scientific research in the island. 

 Tennant says of the Veddahs (iVahtre, July 17), " Their language, 

 which is limited to a very few words, is a dialect of Singhalese 

 without any admixture from the Sanscrit or Pali, — a circum- 

 stance indicative of then- repugnance to intercourse with strangers." 

 Professor Schmidt of the Leipzig University, who visited the Ved- 

 dahs last year, says, "Their language is similar in construction to 

 the Dravidian languages, — that is, similar in grammatical con- 

 struction, — but they have adopted a great number of Singhalese 

 words," which enabled him to hold converse with them by means 

 of a Singhalese interpreter. The Drs. Sarasin also managed to 

 make themselves imderstood by means of Singhalese. 



— A recent exhibition of electrically deposited copper in London, 

 England, attracted much attention from persons interested in the 

 use of that metal, particularly for steam-pipes and electric con- 

 ductors There were shown copper pipes of all sizes, from 6 inches 

 to 18 inches in diameter by about 10 feet in length, and ranging 

 from one-sixteenth to three-eighths of an inch in thickness. They 

 were prepared by an electrical copper-depositing process, on a 

 commercial scale, from common Chili bars without any inter- 

 mediate process. The bars are placed as the anode in an electro- 

 lytic bath, and the tubes are deposited direct on a rotating man- 

 drel, each individual atom of metal being rubbed into those sur- 

 rounding it b.v an agate burnisher. The result is a metal having 

 a tensile strength of 35 tons per "square inch, with 30 percent 

 elongation, and of such purity that when drawn into wire it has 

 an electrical conductivity of 104, or 4 per cent better than the 

 standard. This metal is so ductile that it can be drawn down, 

 without any annealing whatever, till it takes forty miles to weigh 

 a pound. 



— ■ The Engle garbage-cremator, which has been illustrated and 

 described in these columns, is being successfully introduced in 

 various parts of the country, especially in tlie South. In Tampa, 

 Fla., one has been constructed of a capacity sufBcient to dispose 

 of that city's refuse. An official test, made previous to formal 

 acceptance of the cremator by the authorities, was described in 

 a recent issue of the Tampa Tribune. According to that paper, 

 an accurate account kept, showed that in about seven hours' 

 actual running time the furnace destroyed twenty cubic yards of 

 night-soil and garbage, much of the latter being completely 

 saturated with water, and containing large quantities of melons 

 and melon-rinds. The fuel used was light wood, of which about 

 one-quarter of a cord was burned, and three-quarters of a cord of 

 slabs and waste refuse lumber. As nearly as can be stated, the 

 operation of the furnace showed that it would destroy at least 

 forty cubic yards of material in twelve hours, and would require 

 about three-quarters of a cord of light wood during that time. 

 The furnace has been formally accepted and paid for by the city, 

 and will at once be put into active use. 



— The council of the Scottish Meteorological Society refer, in a 

 report made July 14, to the observations of Mr. Rankin on the 

 number of dust particles in the atmosphere, carried on with two 

 sets of apparatus invented by Mr. Aitken. Nature states that, 

 though it would be premature to offer a statement of positive re- 

 sults, the council think that some interesting conclusions appear 

 to be indicated by the observations. The maximum number of 

 dust particles in a cubic centimetre hitherto observed is 13,863, on 

 March 31; and the minimum, 50, on June 15. On March 31, at 

 4 30 P.M., the summit was clear, and the number of particles was 

 3,785; but shortly thereafter a thickness was seen approaching 

 from south-west, which by 6 P.M. reached the observatory, and 

 the number of particles rose to 13,863. On June 15 many obser- 

 vations were made during the day, when the number of particles 

 fell from 937 at midnight, to 50 at 10.30 and 11.43 a.m. The 

 observations point to a daily maximum during the afternoon 



