NATUKAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



Found $200 Pearl in a Free 

 Clam. 



Patrolman Theodore Miller of 

 the Larrabee street station is fond 

 of clams-on-the-half-shell. Being 

 off duty and hungry Saturday 

 night Miller went into George A. 

 Cless' saloon at the corner of Or- 

 chard and North avenues, where 

 the following legend was display- 

 ed: "A Clam With Every Drink." 



Miller paid 5 cents and stood up 

 at the counter. After a 'ibeer" 

 the proprietor, who had broken 

 Miller into police work when him- 

 self a patrolman at the East Chi- 

 cago avenue station three years 

 ago, opened a clam. Miller bit 

 something gritty and picked from 

 his teeth four seed pearls. He 

 handed them back to the saloon- 

 keeper with a remonstrance about 

 the "bones in his clams." He 

 was given another with the invita- 

 tion to find a pearl in that if he 

 could. 



Miller bit hard a second time 

 and nearly pushed the fillings out 

 of two molars with a hard sub- 

 stance a half-inch long, in shape 

 like a capsule. It was smooth 

 and so hard he could not scratch 

 it. Half an hour later the police- 

 man was offered $150 for the spec- 

 imen by Jeweler Zeitz at 274 East 

 North avenue. It was sent to a 

 lapidary yesterday, who said the 

 pearl was quite rare and was worth 

 over $200. 



Saloonman Cless has taken 

 down his old sign. In its place 

 one may now read this edition: 

 "A Pearl with Every Drink. Sure 

 Thing!" — Chicago Record. 



- • »- _ — 



The Cincinnati Zoological Gar- 

 den has sold its giraffe, Daisy, to 

 Barnum's show for $6000. The 

 cost of transportation was $5000. 

 The time consumed in removing it 

 from its yard to the special, large 

 and well padded wagon, was five 

 hours. 



One day the children were having an 

 object lesson on the Great Blue Heron. 

 The teacher called attention to its 

 small tail, saying: "The bird has no 

 tail to speak of." The next day she 

 asked the scholars to write a descrip- 

 tion of the bird, and a little German 

 girl wound up by saying: "The Great 

 Blue Heron has a tail, but it must not 

 be talked about." — Ex. 



Cleaning of Slides and Cover- 

 slips. 



The thorough cleaning of slides 

 and cover-slips is certainly a very 

 important factor in the preparing 



of bacteriological specimens. Spe- 

 cimens contaminated with parti- 

 cles of dust, fat and bacteria which 

 exist in the air are mostly the re- 

 sults of using dirty slides or cover- 

 slips. 



In order to prepare good speci- 

 mens the distribution of organisms 

 upon the slide or cover-slip must be 

 uniform and in as thin a layer as 

 only possible, and when dirty slides 

 or greasy cover-slips are used, 

 these results can not be obtained. 

 Many methods for cleansing slides 

 or cover-slips are in use, but I 

 shall only mention those which are 

 simple and render the slides clean 

 enough for ordinary use. 



The simplest method with new 

 slides and cover-slips is to wash 

 them in warm water and then im- 

 merse them for a few hours in 

 strong nitric or sulphuric acid. 

 After this they are rinsed in water, 

 then in alcohol, ether or chloro- 

 form from which they are remov- 

 ed to a suitable vessel containing 

 equal parts of alcohol and ammo- 

 nia. 



Slides and slips which have 

 been previously used are freed 

 from all coarse adherent matter 

 and boiled in a strong soap solu- 

 tion. They are then rinsed in 

 clean water, followed by rinsing in 

 alcohol or ether and, finally plac- 

 ed in a mixture of alcohol and am- 

 monia. From the soap solution 

 they may be transferred to nitric 

 acid and then treated the same as 

 above. 



InLoffler'smethod,the cover-slips 

 are warmed in concentrated sul- 

 phuric acid for some time and then 

 rinsed in water, after which they 

 are placed into equal parts of al- 

 cohol and ammonia. 



Slides are best kept in a muse- 

 um jar which is about four inches 

 high and three inches in diameter, 

 while slips are kept in a small 

 glass-stopped bottle. When the 

 slides or cover-slips are to be used 

 they must be wiped dry with a 

 clean cloth from which the fat has 

 been extracted. 



Victor F. Mueller, 

 Member of the Long Island Col- 

 lege Hospital, 



Brooklyn, N. Y. 



Amber's Ancient Glory. 



That a string of amber beads 

 around a child's throat will keep 

 off throat troubles is a world-worn 

 superstition. While the learned 

 doctor may pooh-pooh the efficacy 

 of the beads, thousands of moth- 

 ers will swear by them. The idea 



antedates the Christian era. Pop- 

 paea made Nero dress the amphi- 

 theatre at Rome with amber, and 

 had shields of it broken in the 

 arena to prevent the infectious 

 odor of the common people from 

 reaching her when at the games 

 during an epidemic in Rome. 



The first use of the amber as a 

 mouthpiece for pipes followed, 

 when the Turks learned of its al- 

 leged quality of not carrying infec- 

 tion. Such mouthpieces were first 

 fitted to the public pipes, those 

 which are passed from mouth to 

 mouth in the markets, a score or 

 more being attached to one large 

 bowl containing tobacco. For 

 nearly 3,000 years the world's sup- 

 ply of amber has been taken from 

 the region which lies between 

 Frische-Haff and the Kuriche-Haff 

 on the Samland peninsula in Prus- 

 sia, and it is more than likely the 

 "amber gatherers of the North," 

 the mystic ^Esti of pre-historic 

 days, gathered it there for the 

 40,000-year-old worship of the 

 Brachmans. Traces of amber have 

 been found in Hindostan, and some 

 far-reaching veins of the Prussian 

 deposit have been found in Nor- 

 way, France, Germany, Poland 

 and Russia, but never in working 

 quantities. Two years ago an im- 

 portant discovery of amber was 

 made by O. J. Klatz, the Govern- 

 ment astronomer of Canada, who 

 reported finding an extensive mine 

 at Saskatchewan, near Cedar Creek. 

 This discovery is the more im- 

 portant because it is a fact well es- 

 tablished, though carefully denied 

 by the Samland people, that the 

 Prussian supply is about at an 

 end. 



The gathering of amber is no 

 child's play, but is frought with 

 privation, hard work and danger. 

 The mother whose baby wears a 

 string of the yellow beads around 

 its tiny throat has little idea of the 

 risks run in gathering them. 



When the gathering of amber 

 first commenced in historic times, 

 a rude, hardy body of men banded 

 themselves together and lived on 

 the bleak Samland, waiting until 

 the storms rolled up heavy seas, 

 and so loosened the wealth which 

 lay at the bottom of the shore wa- 

 ter, held fast by rocks and sand. 

 When the storms abated the hardy 

 fellows, with long poles shod with 

 hooks of iron, ventured shoulder 

 deep into the rolling, icy surges, 

 and raked up and carried ashore the 

 pieces detached by the surges. 

 These were laid in houses on the 

 beach, and were roughly sorted by 

 the women and old people, and sold 



