2l8 



SCIENTIFIC NE\VS. 



[Dec. 1st, 1887. 



doned. The latest device we meet with is that of Dr. Clemon. 

 He mixes with the soil of the vineyard sulphides and carbon- 

 ates which are easily decomposed, and by preference those 

 of potash. He then introduces a quantity of peat which has 

 been previously allowed to absorb sulphuric, nitric, or 

 phosphoric acid. Any of these acids gradually acts upon 

 the above-mentioned sulphides and carbonates, and sets 

 free sulphuretted hydrogen and carbonic acid. These gases 

 pervade the soil, and according to the experiments of Dr. 

 Eyrich destroy not merely the phylloxera in its subterranean 

 stage, but other vermin. The potash, of course, remains in 

 the soil as a sulphate, a nitrate, or a phosphate, all of which, 

 especially the two latter, are valuable manures. Thus the 

 soil of the vineyard is enriched and freed from vermin at a 

 stroke. We can only hope that this process may prove 

 successful when carried out on the large scale. 



Scientific Instruction. — At the annual distribution of 

 prizes to the students of the Newcastle Grammar School, 

 Sir Lowthian Bell made some very useful remarks on the 

 subject of technical instruction for artisans. He is strongly 

 of opinion that we should seek to obtain greater skill on 

 the part of our workmen ; at the same time he is by no 

 means enamoured of the idea of introducing mechanical 

 tools into our schools, as he considers the workshops the 

 proper place for acquiring this knowledge. He urged, how- 

 ever, the necessity for more science teaching, not because a 

 young man on leaving school would then have learnt 

 enough science for his future life, but because his attention 

 would then be directed to science in a way that no other 

 mode of procedure would do. He felt sure that if our lads 

 were instructed in the first elements of scientific knowledge 

 while they were at school, when turned into workshops or 

 chemical manufactories, they would in one week learn ten 

 times as much of the business to which they devoted 

 themselves as they would in ten years in a school by the 

 introduction of mechanical tools. The latter system, he 

 considered, would only distract their attention from those 

 branches of study to which they ought to apply themselves, 

 and in this opinion he was fortified by every inquiry he had 

 made on the subject. 



Sir Lothian Bell also very properly insisted on the 

 need lor accuracy in all branches of work, and in support 

 of this he gave some very interesting particulars of what is 

 now accomplished with spinning machinery. A spinning 

 mule, he said, may have 91,000 spindles, and these 91,000 

 spindles can spin in the year cotton yarn representing a 

 length of 67,382,000 miles. That is to say, that in eighteen 

 months such a mule would be able to spin a length ot 

 cotton yarn which would reach from the earth to the sun. 

 The mule also has to travel backwards and forwards while 

 the spindles are running at very high speeds, and it would 

 be quite impossible to insure this being done with perfect 

 regularity unless the machinery were made with the 

 greatest possible precision. 



Books as Vehicles of Infection. — That books, in com- 

 mon with paper of all kinds, are fine mediums for absorb- 

 ing and retaining infectious matter, has long been admitted. ■ 

 But its practical recognition for, we believe, the first time, 

 is due to the Town Council of Sheffield, who have closed 

 the lending department of the Free Public Library in their 

 town until the epidemic of small-pox now prevailing there 

 shall have subsided. This precaution, however, will- be 

 but imperfect unless all other lending libraries in the town 

 are closed in like manner. Whether this is within the legal 

 powers of a corporation we, of course, cannot decide. 

 The distribution of tracts is another channel through which 

 zymotic disease may be easily propagated. 



Artificial Glucose. — We learn that Dr. E. Fischer and 

 Dr. Julius Tafel, of the University of Wiirzburg, have 

 succeeded in the artificial preparation of glucose, otherwise 

 known as starch-sugar. The raw material appears to be 

 acrolein, that well-known volatile and irritating compound 

 which diffuses itself through the house when cook lets a 

 red-hot cinder fall into the dripping-pan. But on the large 

 scale acrolein is best obtained from glycerine. We are not 

 sanguine as to the industrial prospects of the new invention, 

 since glucose is now being prepared from potatoes, maize, 

 etc., at a price much below that of glycerine. 



The Constitution of the Heavenly Bodies. — A paper 

 read by Mr. Norman Lockyer before the Royal Society on 

 the 17th ult., contains views which if ultimately substantiated 

 must initiate a new epoch in the science of astronomy. He 

 holds that all self-luminous bodies in the heavens are com- 

 posed of meteorites or masses of meteoric vapour, produced 

 by the heat evolved by the condensation of meteor swarms 

 due to gravitation. The meteorite is, so to say, the starting- 

 point of the universe. The spectra of all bodies depend 

 upon the heat of the meteorites produced by collisions, and 

 varying almost infinitely. If collision takes place when two 

 bodies are moving at the rate of one mile per second, the 

 temperature generated will be about 3,000? Centigrade, a 

 temperature double that at which pure iron melts ; whilst 

 if the bodies are moving at the rate of 60 miles per second 

 — a velocity perfectly possible — the heat produced would be 

 10,800,000? Centigrade, a temperature absolutely incon- 

 ceivable. 



Stars like Sirius represent an ultimate stage of the 

 process of the condensation of meteorites; and here the 

 highest possible temperature is reached. A cooling stage 

 is shown in our sun, whilst the stars of the third class have, 

 cooled down to temperatures no longer transcendental and 

 capable of approximate reproduction by artificial means. 

 The heavenly bodies may be arranged on the two arms of 

 an ascending and descending curve. At the foot of the for- 

 mer branch are meteorites, then nebulae, comets, and stars 

 in different stages of condensation. At the summit we find 



