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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gathered, put in paper bags, and hung up to. 

 wait and see, or rather to wait and hear, what 

 would happen. For days these pods, as they 

 dried, kept popping in the bags, and the 

 seeds, small and polished, very like rice in 

 shape, were secured. . . . But when the seeds 

 were gathered there was another problem to 

 be solved — how to thread them. The finest, 

 sharpest needle would split them every time. 

 The friend who had threaded them told me 

 how it could be done. The seed was to be 

 cut off at each end with a very fine file. This 

 was a labor of love, and the necklace was 

 pretty enough to pay for the trouble." 



Crystallization of Metallic Oxides.— M. 



Moissan has succeeded, with the high temper- 

 ature obtained in a newly devised electrical 

 furnace, in fusing and crystallizing many of 

 the metallic oxides. At temperatures rang- 

 ing from 2,000° to 3,000° 0., magnesia, lime, 

 and strontia crystallize and then quickly 

 melt ; boric acid, protoxide of titanium, and 

 alumina are volatilized ; and the oxides of 

 the iron family, stable at high temperatures, 

 furnish melted masses bristling with little 

 crystals. These important results were only 

 the prelude to still more remarkable experi- 

 ments intended to lead up to the preparation 

 of carbon under high pressure, and the arti- 

 ficial production of the diamond. Having 

 studied the solubility of carbon in a certain 

 number of metals in fusion — such as alumi- 

 num, iron, manganese, chromium, uranium, 

 silver, and platinum — and in a metalloid, sili- 

 con, he succeeded in obtaining by fusion in 

 one of these metals new varieties of graph- 

 ite ; but he was able to produce crystallized 

 carbon, or diamond, only by performing his 

 experiments under high pressure. When iron 

 in fusion is saturated with carbon, different 

 results are obtained according to the temper- 

 ature to which the mass is raised. Between 

 1,100° and 1,200° C, a mixture of amorphous 

 carbon and graphite is obtained, and at 3,000° 

 C. graphite exclusively in beautiful crystals. 

 If a high pressure is introduced, the con- 

 ditions of crystallization are completely 

 changed. The process employed by the au- 

 thor resulted in the production of three kinds 

 of carbon — graphite in small quantity when 

 the cooling was quickly done, a carbon of a 

 chestnut color in very thin flakes, and a small 

 quantity of a dense carbon which was isolated 



by treatment with the strongest acids. The 

 very minute fragments scratched rubies and 

 burned in oxygen at 1,000° C. They seem, 

 therefore, to be incontestably diamond. Some 

 of the fragments are black and others trans- 

 parent. M. Moissan's reporter speaks of his 

 having, in the production of these diamonds, 

 surprised one of the secrets of Nature — ig- 

 noring the diamonds obtained several years 

 ago, under a similar high pressure, from hy- 

 drocarbons by Mr. Hannay, of Edinburgh. 



East African Finery. — Among the pres- 

 ents which Mrs. French-Sheldon received 

 from the Masai when passing through the 

 East African country called Kilimegalia, 

 were the characteristic articles, a vulture- 

 feather pannier, vulture-feather shoulder 

 capes, dancing masks of various kinds, 

 shields, swords, and a collarette made of 

 cropped ostrich feathers stuck through 

 leather, so that the quills make a rough sur- 

 face on the inner side. " This is worn only 

 by the warrior who has killed twelve persons, 

 and resembles in theory the robe of Janus, as 

 the roughness on the inner side produced by 

 the quills excoriates the surface of the neck of 

 the wearer. The warrior who gave me this 

 collar had the blood streaming from his 

 throat to his waist. One warrior presented 

 me with a wooden case filled with ostrich 

 feathers, which he carried with him to re- 

 place the feathers in his warrior mask and 

 for other decorations. I bought several of 

 the cow skins worn by the women as cloth- 

 ing and for bedding at night, for the cold is 

 extreme. They presented me also with a 

 dancing wand, and one of their nebana, or 

 cloths made of strips of white cotton and em- 

 bellished with red, of various designs, which 

 they sling from their shoulders ; also a colo- 

 bus monkey tail, which they wear under their 

 knees, over the long oval bells, and a hyena 

 tail decorated with a lion mane and colobus 

 monkey tails, which they suspend from their 

 shoulders as an emblem of war." 



The Masais of East Africa. — The Masais 

 of East Africa, according to Mrs. French- 

 Sheldon, are true warriors and raiders. They 

 keep a subject tribe, the Wa-sombutta, who 

 do their hunting and what meager agricul- 

 ture they indulge in. The people of this 

 tribe are insignificant in appearance, and, al- 



