Aug. ist, 18S7.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



125 



saccharine, which is said to be 230 times as sweet as the 

 best cane-sugar. 



The Sense of Smell in Dogs. — The results of some care- 

 ful experiments on this subject by Mr. G. J. Romanes 

 have been communicated to the Linnrean Society. He 

 finds that not only the feet, but the whole body of a man 

 exhale a peculiar or individual odour, which a dog can 

 recognise as that of his master amid a crowd of other 

 persons; that the individual quality of this odour can be 

 recognised at great distances to windward, or in calm 

 weather to great distances in any direction ; and that even 

 powerful perfumes may not overcome this odour. Yet a 

 single sheet of brown paper, when stepped upon instead of 

 the ground, and afterwards removed, was sufficient to 

 prevent Mr. Romanes' dog from following his trail. 



Antiseptic for Garden Crops. — According to Dr. A. B. 

 Griffiths, iron sulphate is an antiseptic for most of the 

 virulent epidemics which attack field and garden crops. These 

 diseases are due to microscopic fungi, whose structures are 

 built up in a manner somewhat difierent from the correspond- 

 ing parts in other plants. It appears that the cellulose in 

 these fungi is acted upon by iron sulphate, w^hereas in the 

 higher plants the cellulose of the cell walls is not influenced. 

 The iron sulphate is said to destroy the cellulose of the 

 fungi, but does not affect that of the attacked plant. It is 

 therefore an antidote and destroyer of such parisitic germs 

 and fungi as the potato disease, wheat mildew, etc. This 

 should be of great importance to horticulturists and agri- 

 culturists. 



A School of Brewery. — We learn from Industries that the 

 annual congress of brewers, chemists, and others interested 

 in this trade, was recently held at Graz, and that one of the 

 questions which received attention from the congress was that 

 of technical education. It has been resolved to institute, in 

 connection with the Vienna technical museum, a school for 

 brewery and a brewers' laboratory. As the members of the 

 congress are not very sanguine of obtaining Government 

 aid in the shape of a subvention for this undertaking, they 

 have resolved to form a society with the object of raising 

 the necessary funds, and they are sanguine that there will 

 be no difficulty in obtaining the financial support of brewers 

 and others, since this industry occasions a large export 

 trade, and is one of the most important in Austria. 



Inventions Wanted. — A contemporary enumerates the 

 following as among the inventions which are specially 

 needed at the present time : Macaroni machinery, good red 

 lead pencils, type-writers that will work on account-books 

 and record-books, indelible stamp-cancelling ink, a practical 

 car-starter, a good railway car-ventilator, better horse-shoes, 

 locomotive head-lights, an instrument for measuring the 

 velocity of wind-cui rents, apparatus for measuring the depth 

 cf the sea without sounding by line, piano-lid hinge which 

 shall be flush on the outside, good fluid Indian ink for 

 draughtsmen, a good metallic railway tie, an effective cut- 

 off for locomotives, a method of alloying copper and iron, 

 and a moulding material for iron and brass casting, capable 

 of giving a mould that can be used over and over again. 



A New Light for Instantaneous Photographs. — At a 

 recent meeting of the Berlin Physical Society, Prof. C. W. 

 Vogel communicated the most recent discovery in connec- 

 tion with instantaneous photography, by which it is now 

 possible to obtain instantaneous photographs, not only at 

 night, but also in the darkest places. Messrs. Goedicke and 

 Miethe have prepared a mixture of pulverized magnesium, 

 chlorate of potash, and sulphide of antimony, which when 

 ignited produces an explosive, lightning-like illumination of 

 such intensity that by means of it an instantaneous 



photograph can be taken. The speaker then gave a demon- 

 stration of the discovery by taking photographs of several 

 persons present. He used the artificial light, of which each 

 flash lasted one-fortieth of a second, and in a few minutes 

 produced a picture during the meeting. The powders, as 

 prepared by the discoverers, cost only a few pfennige each. 



Organic Matter in Drinking Water. — Mr. A. W. Hare, 

 M.B., recently read a paper on the above subject, chiefly with 

 reference to the biological side of the question. He stated that 

 even in distilled water there are certain forms of organisms 

 which survive for a considerable time ; but that such water 

 is always perfectly sale for drinking purposes. Water taken 

 from deep wells is very free from microbes, but when 

 left for a time in the open air it becomes more crowded with 

 them than river water. In regard to river water, he pointed 

 out that it is a popular fallacy that water from a rushing 

 torrent is safer for drinking purposes than water Irom a 

 sluggish stream. He stated that the reverse is the fact, and 

 in the case of water contaminated by sewage he said that 

 after ten or twelve days there is a smaller number of 

 organisms present than in river water, the reason being that 

 during the first two or three daj's they had multiplied to 

 such an extent as to exhaust the pabulum in the water. 



Preservation of Wooden Poles. — A simple method of 

 treating wood with preservative solutions is employed in 

 Norway for telegraph poles. After the poles are set in 

 place a man goes from pole to pole with an auger, with 

 which he bores a hole in each post, beginning at a point 

 about two feet above the ground, and boring obliquely 

 downward, at as small an angle as possible with the axis of 

 the post, until the point of the auger reaches the centre of 

 the stick. The auger hole should be an inch in diameter, 

 and in telegraph poles of the ordinary size will hold easily 

 four to five ounces of sulphate of copper, which is put into 

 it in the form of coarsely-powdered crystals, and the open- 

 ing then stopped with a plug, the end of which is left pro- 

 jecting as a handle, so that it can be pulled out and replaced. 

 It is found that the crystals of copper sulphate disappear 

 slowly, so that every three or four months the charge must 

 be renewed ; while the wood, both above and below the 

 auger hole, even to the very top of the pole, gradually 

 assumes the greenish tint due to the presence of copper in 

 the pores. 



A Rain of Dust. — We take the following from La 

 Nature: "On the 3rd of May at Fontainebleau, and again 

 on the 7th of the same month at Cahors, rain fell which 

 brought with it a fine, yellow powder, similar in appearance 

 to flowers of sulphur. It was the sulphur ritiii of the 

 ancients. M. Guilbert, an Engineer officer at Fontainebleau, 

 sent us a sample of the yellow powder collected in that 

 town ; it burns with a pungent smell after the manner of 

 organic matter, and leaves grey ashes. A microscopical 

 examination enables us to state that the dust consists of 

 round grains, which are none other than those of the pollen 

 of the pinus sylveslris. The pines of the forest of Fontaine- 

 bleau were in full bloom early in May, and the pollen was 

 carried up by eddies of wind and caught by the rain in the 

 upper regions. At Cahors the neighbouring pines of the 

 Landes explain the phenomenon in a similar manner." 

 Our contemporary adds, needlessly, that these showers of 

 yellow dust, called sulphur rain, are quite distinct from the 

 showers of sand which come from the Sahara and fall in 

 Sicily and Southern Italy. 



Electricity in the Royal Navy. — According to the 

 Electrical Review, some interesting electrical experiments 

 have recently been carried out by H.M.S. Bcllerophon in 

 the Mediterranean, with the view of testing the practicability 



