p. 649 | CURIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 21, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 41.

CURIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC.

THE tongue of the giraffe is nearly a foot and a half long.

AFRICA has nearly seven hundred languages, and this fact presents great difficulties to missionary effort.

IF YOU WISHED to walk through all the streets and lanes and alleys of London, and were able to arrange your trip so that you never traversed the same one twice, you would have to walk ten miles every day for nine years before your journey would be completed.

TELEPHONES FOR DIVERS.—The telephone has lately been arranged for the use of divers. A sheet of copper is used in place of one of the glasses in the helmet, and to this a telephone is fixed, so that the diver, when at the

bottom of the sea, has only to slightly turn his head in order to report what he sees or to receive instructions from above.

THE VITALITY OF THE SNAIL is remarkable. One that had been glued to a card in the British Museum for four years came to life upon being immersed in warm water. Some specimens in the collection of a naturalist revived after they had apparently been dead for fifteen years.

A NEW ALBUMINOUS POISON of one hundred times the power of strychnine, has been described by Professor Kobert; it is extracted from the seeds of Abrus precatoria, which have long been used as irritants and anti-hemorrhage remedies—in Brazil for ophthalmia, and in India as a poison; the poisonous principle causes death by coagulation of the blood corpuscles.

NOISELESS COG WHEELS.—The problem of silent machinery running appears to have been brought a step nearer solution by the introduction in Austria of cog wheels made of pressed rawhide, which are to work in conjunction with wheels of cast iron, steel, and other metals. The new wheels are said to possess great strength. They do not require lubricating, and are therefore clean in operation.

LUXURY FOR THE CYCLIST.—An English inventor is tempting the cyclist on summer excursion bent with a rose-colored scheme for increasing the luxury of his fascinating pastime. An umbrella can be fitted to the frame of the bicycle, which is to keep the rider dry and cool in all weathers, and increase his speed of transit. It is light and strong, the stock and socket being made of steel tube; it can be put up or down instantly, and entirely removed from the machine in less than a minute.

AN EXTRAORDINARY SWALLOWING FEAT.—A German contemporary states that a very peculiar patient was recently under treatment at the Augsburg State Hospital. A man, aged forty, had set himself the task of swallowing some 250 fruit stones. Having finished this extraordinary meal, he experienced excruciating pain. While under treatment the first day in the hospital, the medical men succeeded in removing 200 hazel nut stones. The man had taken all this trouble to place his life in jeopardy for a wager of 5s.

COMPRESSED AIR EXPERIMENT.—The Mekarski compressed air system of operating street railways will shortly be introduced in Washington for investigation. A railroad working on this system has been in operation in Berne, Switzerland, since Oct. 1, 1890. It is about two miles long and is worked by a fifty horse power turbine plant. The maximum air pressure in the locomotive reservoir amounts to 450 pounds to the square inch, and the time required to charge each reservoir is ten minutes. In the city the speed is reduced to seven and one-half miles an hour, but outside the city a speed of thirty miles an hour is permitted. The experiments to be made in Washington will have a much better plant than the Berne railway.