Entries Tagged 'Science & Natural History' ↓

In many museums may be seen in the most perfect state of preservation in amber fossilized remains of plants and animals, says the Gentleman’s Magazine. The science of Egypt, in its highest development, did not succeed in discovering a method of embalming so perfect as the simple process taking place in nature. A tree exudes a gummy, resinous matter in a liquid state. An insect accidentally lights in it and is caught. The exudation continues and envelops it completely, preserving the most minute details of its structure. In the course of time the resin becomes a fossil and is known as amber. The history of fossil insects is largely indebted to the fly in amber. And to the preserving properties of amber we owe, likewise, our knowledge of some of the more minute details of ancient plant structure.

The coasts of the Baltic are and have been from the days of the Phoenician traders the great source of the amber of commerce. It occurs in rolled fragments, in strata known to geologists as oligocene. These are tertiary rocks of a date little more recent than those of the London basin and equivalent to the younger tertiary series of the Isle of Wight. The fragments of fossil resin were washed down by the rivers from the pine forests of the district along with sediments and vegetable debris. In them are found most perfectly preserved remains of the period, as well as of insect life. Fragments of twigs, leaves, buds and flowers, with sepals, petals stamens and pistils still in place, occur. A recent genus, dentzia, has been recognized by its characteristic stamens; the valves of the anthers of cinnamomum are seen in others. In one specimen the pendent catkin of a species of oak is seen as distinctly through the clear amber as if ti were a fresh flower. And, besides the insect and plant remains thus sealed up in amber, stray relics of the hight fauna of the forest have also been met with.

Fragments of hair and feathers have been caught in the sticky resin and preserved. Among others a woodpecker and squirrel have been recognized in the Baltic amber.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, March, 1896[/tags]

The lecture delivered by Prof. W. B. Stickney, of Ann Arbor, at the library building last evening, under the auspices of the Columbian club, was listened to with deep interest by a good-sized audience. “Nicola Tesla and Recent Marvelous Discoveries in Electricity and Ether” was the subject, and it was handled in an able manner by the speaker, who is an ardent admirer and strong champion of the Servian whose startling electrical discoveries have opened up a new era in the world of science. Although Nicola Tesla is by 37 years of age he has fathomed many of the hidden mysteries of electricity and is the patentee of 127 inventions along this line. Prof. Stickney suggested that the world was upon the eve of even greater discoveries in electricity and ether, the latter of which he denominated as the store-house of energy, and ventured the prediction that in five years from now the world would stand face to face with materialized forces of which it does not now even dream.–Flint Daily News.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, September, 1895[/tags]

“Died at her residence, of a nauseous smell, Margaret Smith, in the 40th year of her age.” If in the mortuary column of this or every other paper, the expression “died of typhoid fever” was stricken out, and in it stead printed “died of a nauseous smell,” the frequency with which we should find these words occurring would not a little surprise and alarm us.

Is it, indeed true, that nauseous smells actually kill? That they are very disagreeable we all know, but that they are deadly not everyone is fully aware. We are accustomed to regard our olfactories as sources from which pleasure may be derived, rather than as monitors to warn us against unwholesome and destructive odors. Did we trust them in the latter capacity and heed their monitions, delicate and almost imperceptible as they frequently are, much sickness and many deaths would every year be prevented.

It is a fact now very well understood in the medical profession that all excrementitious matters of the human body received into the body again through the lungs, or the pores, or the mouth are direct and deadly poisons. They will kill as certainly as arsenic, or prussic acid, or a pellet of cold lead, if enough of them are taken.

Prince Albert died of a minute crevice in the mouldering mansion of an old London sewer that ran under a closet adjoining his summer sitting-room. The odor was imperceptible, but it made Queen Victoria a mourner all her days. One among the distinguished and lamented American dead in 1869 died of a water closet adjoining his office which was not properly drained. The papers said “typhoid fever,” and thousands mourned his “untimely removal from a field of extensive usefulness here, to his everlasting reward.” The clergy and pious people called it “an inscrutable and mysterious Providence;” the doctors said “imperfect sewerage.”

In the country there are fewer deaths from this cause than in the city, for reasons quite obvious: populations are not crowded together, and effete matters are returned more promptly to the soil. Yet in the most healthy localities typhoid fever sometimes occurs, and may always be traced to its only source.

In the summer of 1860 the writer of this article spent some months on the plateau of the Cumberland Mountains, that which, perhaps, the world does not afford a more salubrious region. Within a mile of our cottage an entire family lay prostrate with typhoid fever, and two of their number died. What was the matter there? In one large log cabin, imperfectly lighted and ill ventilated, ten persons, ate, slept, lived. There was carried on all the work of the family; the beds were never aired, the linen seldom ever washed, and the slops were thrown where ease and convenience suggested. To a healthy pair of lungs the atmosphere within and around the house was simply intolerable. But they had become accustomed to the odor, though it utterly refused to make peace with them.

As the warmth of the sun increases, more and more vigilance should be used by the house-keeper to keep everything in and around her premises perfectly sweet and wholesome. Dry earth will completely disinfect and deodorize every offensive substance. Where this cannot be applied, lime, dilute sulphuric acid, and copperas water form very good substitutes. Particular attention should be paid to the drainage of the sink, especially if that and the well are contiguous. Sleeping rooms should be thoroughly aired and sunned every day, and the bedding hung upon a line or fence at least once every week during hot weather. If these simple rules are religiously observed, whatever other diseases may affect the family, typhoid fever will not be among them.–Hearth and Home.

[tags]Michigan Argus, June, 1870[/tags]

There was begun in the last week or two a very thorough revision of the telegraphic cipher codes in use by people in this city doing business with european countries, says the New York Sun. The revision is in order to conform with a new regulation of the International Telegraph bureau, designed to put an end to the difficulties, disputes and inconveniences that have been connected with international telegraphing for very many years. The International Telegraph bureau is a telegraphic clearing-house and intelligence office located at Berne, Switzerland, of which all the governments of Europe, and all the important nations of the world, with the sole exception of the United States, are members. “Berne,” as the bureau is generally referred to, is the central information bureau of the telegraph service of the whole world. Any interruption to a cable or land line, the opening of a new line, or rearrangement and shortening of an old one; all delays to telegraphic communication, anywhere and from any cause, such as storms or earthquakes, or censorship on telegrams because of war or civil disturbances in Cuba or Armenia, or anywhere else; anything or everything that improves or disturbs the telegraph service in any part of the world, is at once reported from the affected locality directly to Berne, and the information is promptly sent out from there to the headquarters of every government and telegraph company, and so on to every telegraph office of importance in the world.

The bureau was first established as a result of an international telegraph convention held at St. Petersburg in 1875, to settle all matters of rules and regulations for the interchange of telegrams among the various countries; to collect and apportion the charges on international telegrams, according to the proportion of work done by each country, and generally to do the work of the telegraph companies and systems that the clearing-house does for the banks. Every five years a convention is held, at which all the governments are represented, and the rules to govern Berne are considered and revised and enacted.

There has always been difficulty between the telegraph service and its customers over the use of cipher words. Of course, where the cost of telegraphing runs to several dollars a word, every effort is made to be brief. Most elaborate and really wonderful codes have been constructed, some at a cost of thousands of dollars, by the aid of which one word is made to express a whole sentence, or paragraph, of commercial information. To such a science has this matter of codes been reduced that the bulk of telegrams passing between this country or England and distant places like China an Australia rarely consist of more than two or three words. Many hundred contain only one word, besides the name and address. And one word often sums up a whole day’s business. To insure accuracy and speed the convention decided many years ago that only legitimate words, belonging to one of eight languages, should be allowed in codes, and no word should contain more than ten letters. Arbitrary combinations of letters, such as xqp, or wzy, are only accepted on a basis of three letters to a word. While cable operators are not expected to know eight languages, yet there is something about legitimate words of a modern language that makes it easily recognized. It sounds all right on the Morse instrument and looks all right on the cable slip. A mutilated word is as readily distinguished and stopped. The sender of a foreign telegram of eight words may use a word each from English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Latin, but they must be good words and not over ten letters long. The receiving clerk in a cable office will almost infallibly spot an illegitimate word, and, as he is held responsible at the rate of several dollars a word for any wrong word he may pass, he lets very few indeed get by him.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, May, 1895[/tags]

The cold backward spring weather which we are experiencing has led to much surmises as to the cause of the failure of the earth’s heating apparatus to do its work. In regard to the matter a contemporary remarks:

Some have supposed that we are entering upon a change of seasons, and the rather appalling theory has been broached that the poles are changing position, and that the arctic region is to swop places with the equator. The astronomers have, however, brought forward an explanation of the late “cold spell” somewhat less disturbing to the nerves, though not altogether tranquilizing. They say that the sun’s disc is at present riddled with holes, in other words, with spots, one of which is of very considerable size. It is a deep cavity in the photosphere, and so wide that the whole terrestrial globe would find room in it without touching edges. There is another spot which, though much smaller, still has one of its diameters as large as that of our earth. Herschel and Arago having conceived the idea of comparing the annual price of corn to the number of solar spots observed each year, found on comparing a series of twenty-five results, that the greater the number of spots the higher was the cost of bread-stuffs. This shows that these phenomena may reduce the heat of the sun considerably.

On this theory a piece of smoked glass will be a handy thing to have about the house; and in laying in the coals or providing for winter clothing the first thing in order will be to take a squint to ascertain the dimension of the holes in the solar atmosphere.

[tags]Peninsular Courier and Family Visitant, May, 1868[/tags]

The people of this neighborhood are very much alarmed over the fact that a monster snake has been seen at large on the outskirts of the town for a number of days, and it is feared that somebody will be attacked by the serpent before it is killed or captured.

The monster was first seen about three weeks ago by Justice Veltor. Since then it has been seen at intervals by I. W. Valentine, superintendent of the Baptist Union Sunday School, and by Dr. Oliver Jones. The latter chased the snake into the woods in an effort to capture it, but was unsuccessful.

All agreed that the snake is about fourteen feet in length, with a body as big around as a pail. Its head is diamond-shaped, and the top is surmounted by a crest that is shaped like a crown.

Some time ago, Dr. Wood, a resident of this place, died, but before his death he liberated a number of large snakes which he held captive. The snake which has been seen is believed to be one of them. The monster is referred to by the people hearabouts as the “King of Snakes.”

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, September, 1895[/tags]

The manufacture of transparent leather has for some time past been accomplished by different methods, but experiments show, as reported in the Magazin Pittoresque, that, for simplicity and effectiveness, the method described below is reliable: After the hair has been removed from the hide, the latter, tightly stretched upon a suitable frame, is rubbed with a mixture consisting of one thousand parts glycerine of twenty-six B, two parts salicylic acid, two parts picric acid, and twenty-five parts boric acid. Before the hide is absolutely dry it is placed in a room where the rays of the sun do not penetrate, and it is saturated with a solution of bichromate of potash; when the hide is very dry there is applied to its surface an alcoholic solution of tortoise shell, a transparent aspect being thus obtained, and the leather is very flexible.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, June, 1895[/tags]

A tornado swept over Steele county, Minn., doing immense damage. It centered at Belle Plain. Hail stones from 4 to 6 inches in diameter fell, breaking all glass fronts in the business places, all the windows in dwellings and churches. Smaller buildings were unroofed and overturned. Horses standing on the streets were knocked senseless. The corn crop in that region is totally destroyed.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, August, 1895[/tags]