igS The West American Sciejitist. 



row leaved Brachystemon , and many others in flower. August 

 4th Dr. Lowry informed me he has seen Pyrus coronaria, forty 

 feet in height in the forests about P'rankHn. He showed me a 

 Rudbeckia about three foet high with a cone of dark purple flow- 

 ers probably a new species. A few notes more and his diary was 

 closed to be opened by him no more. 



SCIENTIFIC SELECTIONS. 



Soft iron has a magnetic power twice that of lodestone and one 

 thousand times that of ferric sulphate. 



Astronomical authority fixes the light emitted by all the stars 

 upon the surface of the globe as equal to one-tenth of the light of 

 the full moon. 



The fastest time ever made by any ship or boat, according to a 

 scientific journal, was twenty eight miles per hour, this being the 

 performance of an Italian twin screw torpedo boat. 



The sun's gravity is twenty-seven times as great as that of the 

 earth. Were the earth's gravity increased to that of the sun, a 

 one hundred and fifty pound object would weigh about two tons. 



Upon analysis as it comes from the gin, cotton-seed contains 

 fifty {)Ounds of nitrogen, twenty pounds of phosphoric acid, and 

 twenty pounds of potash to the ton. Southern corn-fodder con- 

 tains about twenty pounds of nitrogen and small percentages of 

 phosphoric acid and potash to the ton. 



According to a celebrated French astronomer, the total number 

 of stars visible to the average naked eye does not exceed six thou- 

 sand. An ordinary opera-glass will bring out twenty thousand ; 

 a small telescope will bring out nearly two hundred thousand, and 

 the most powerful telescopes one hundred million. 



There is no property of steel that is not common to cast iron; 

 as, lor instance, the hardening of steel and the chilling of cast iron, 

 and softening either by heat, and from the mildest steel, contain- 

 ing only traces of carbon, to the highest cast iron, we have simply 

 one substance, iron, containing various quantities of alloys or sub- 

 stances in solution, and the properties which we observe vary only 

 in degree, due to the quantity of alloy that is present. 



In order to preserve the eyesight, an oculist says that it will be 

 found a good plan to cease using the eyes for the time being, and 

 look away from the work when the sight becomes the least pain- 

 ful, blurred or indistinct, and, after perfect rest for a moment or 

 longer, work may be resumed, to be discontinued as before when 

 the eyes again feel fatigued. The light should always be suflicient 

 and fall properly on the work, it being best to have it iall from 

 above and behind, or, failing this, it may fall from the side. Any 

 artificial light for the evening is good if it is brilliant enough and 



