Part 13

=Alkali Soils in Montana.=--Mr. F. W. Traphagen, of the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station, ascribes the origin of the alkali soil in the arid regions to the failure of the elements to remove the soda salts set free on the disintegration of the rocks, which in humid regions are taken up and washed away by the rains. The soluble salts are dissolved by the water that falls on the surface, and are carried down when it soaks through the ground, to form an element in the ground water. They return thence to the soil when water is brought up by capillary action to supply the place of that lost by surface evaporation, and accumulate there. Then, as the water evaporates they are left on the surface, forming, when in sufficient quantity, the white crusts seen in badly alkalied places. The most effective remedy for alkali might probably be found in underdrainage, which would prevent the ground water rising to the top, and would carry off the salts. This being at present impracticable on the large scale that would be required, such expedients as surface flooding and such cultivation of crops as would tend to check evaporation are suggested. The pernicious effects of “black alkali” or sodium carbonate are seen when it forms as much as about one tenth of one per cent of the soil, in the corrosion and solution of vegetable matter--the stems of plants--exposed to it. It also dissolves the humus or vegetable mold, forming dark-colored solutions and depositing a black residue upon the evaporation of the water--whence its name--and it destroys the tillability of many soils. The “white alkali” or sodium sulphate can be borne in much larger proportions in the soil, and promotes the best crops just before it completely destroys them. The author remarks that the foundations of a number of buildings in Billings, Montana, are gradually becoming insecure because of the disintegration of the rock, due to the absorption of alkali salts, followed by the evaporation of the water and the deposit of salts within the pores of the rock. As the process continues, the rock particles are forced apart.

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=Future of the New York Canals.=--The Committee on Canals of New York State recommend decidedly in their report to the Governor that those highways should not be abandoned but maintained, and the principal ones enlarged, while the others should be kept up as navigable feeders. Of two projects for enlarging the Erie Canal, that undertaken in 1895, with modifications to be executed at a cost of $21,161,645, and a larger one to cost $58,894,668, the committee prefer the larger one, because it will permanently secure the commercial supremacy of New York, while the other is “at best only a temporary makeshift.” An important principle emphasized in the report is that the efficiency of the canals depends upon their management as well as upon their physical size. Therefore a policy should be followed that will encourage transportation companies to seek the use of them; mechanical means of traction should be employed, and mechanical power should be substituted for hand power in certain operations; the force engaged upon them should be organized on a more permanent basis of fitness, so as to furnish an attractive career to graduates of scientific institutions; and efficient guards should be thrown over the expenditure of money “so as to make impossible a repetition of the unfortunate results of the $9,000,000 appropriation.”

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=Floating Stones.=--While engaged in scientific research in southwest Patagonia, Mr. Erland Nordenskiold observed a considerable number of small fragments of slate floating upon the surface, packed together in larger or smaller clusters. The surface of the stones was dry, and they sank immediately when it became wet. Their specific gravity was 2.71, that of the water being 1.0049. The fragments contained no air cavities perceptible to the naked eye, but small, gaseous bubbles could be seen attached to their under surfaces, and stones on the very fringe of the beach which were just beginning to float were observed to be lightened by gaseous bubbles. The author was not able to investigate the phenomenon more closely, but believes that besides the visible bubbles they were surrounded by an envelope of gas, supported by an insignificant coating of algæ, by which they are enveloped. The greasy surface of the mineral also prevented the water from adhering to them, and caused them to be surrounded with a concave meniscus, which contributed much to their floating.

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=The “Periodicity of War.”=--The doctrine of “the periodicity of war” was presented at the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration in May-June, 1899, by General Alfred C. Barnes, with the introductory remark that “no one deprecates war more than the soldier who serves from a sense of duty.” The speaker said that “with all our privileges, and in spite of the elevated spirit that undeniably prevails among us, the original savage lurks in the hearts of men here as elsewhere.” In two hundred and twenty-five years we have had ten principal wars--five during the colonial period and five since our independence was undertaken. The average interval between wars has been about twenty years--“an extremely interesting periodicity, as it brings into the arena a new race of fighting young men. So it seems that for each fresh generation of our youth the temple gates of Janus have to be opened, that the furies there confined may rush forth and devastate the earth. It looks almost like the operation of a natural law.” General Barnes’s theory of the origin of the war that the United States is still engaged in is the simple one that we were “spoiling for a fight.”

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=Expert Opinions respecting Food Preservatives.=--At a recent hearing before an English Official Committee on Preservatives and Coloring Matters in Food, the representative of an eminent firm of preservers said that preservatives were not very generally used with fruits and jams. His firm regarded them as quite unnecessary, but he would not say they ought to be prohibited if used in moderate quantity. Besides coloring matter in vegetables, the only article used by his firm for coloring was an extract of cochineal. Mr. John Tubb Thomas, a medical officer, told of children who were injured by milk containing boracic acid, and said that in his experiments upon himself about fifteen grains of that substance a day had upset his digestive organs and produced sickness, with diarrhœa and headache. The use of the acid, he said, should certainly be prohibited in new milk, which was so largely the food of invalids and infants. Dr. W. H. Corfield said he had found salicylic acid in the lighter wines and beers. It was a slightly acrid, irritating substance, which was used externally for the removal of corns and warts, and was a most undesirable article to put in food. Mr. Walter Collingwood Williams, a public analyst, had found salicylic acid in a number of temperance, non-alcoholic drinks. Dr. Kaye, a medical officer of health, showed that the number of infant deaths was increasing, while the general death rate was decreasing, and attributed the fact, partly at least, to the growing and excessive use of preservatives.

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=Pawnshops in Germany.=--Between half a dozen and a dozen of the state pawnshops which were common in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries still exist. The United States vice-consul at Cologne has given a considerable list of municipal pawnshops in the more important cities of all parts of Germany. On the whole, the number of these institutions is larger in Germany than in France, but smaller than in Belgium, Holland, and Italy. The business of pawnshops appears, at least more recently, to depend less upon general economic than on special, local causes. The German law has usually required private persons doing a pawnbroking business to take out special licenses, and has exercised a more or less strict supervision over them. The supervision practically lacked efficiency, and more stringent regulations were imposed by a statute enacted in 1879, which is now the basis of the existing law of the German Empire. Under this law license is refused to persons who are unfitted for the business, and is not issued at any rate unless a necessity is shown for the institution. The imperial law is supplemented by special laws of the various German states.

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=Animals of the Ocean Depths.=--While plant life in the ocean is limited to shallow waters, Sir John Murray says fishes and members of all the invertebrate groups are distributed over the floor of the ocean at all depths. The majority of these deep-sea animals live by eating the mud, clay, or ooze, or by catching the minute particles of organic matter which fall from the surface. It is probably not far from the truth to say that three fourths of the deposits now covering the floor of the ocean have passed through the alimentary canals of marine animals. These mud-eating species, many of which are of gigantic size when compared with their allies living in the shallow coastal waters, become in turn the prey of numerous rapacious animals armed with peculiar prehensile and tactile organs. Many deep-sea animals present archaic characters; still, the deep sea can not be said to contain more remnants of fauna which flourished in remote geological periods than the shallow and fresh waters of the continents.

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=The Site of Ophir.=--Dr. Carl Peters, an African explorer recently returned to London, believes that he has found the Ophir whence King Solomon’s gold was brought, in the country between the Zambesi and the Pungwa Rivers, in Portuguese Africa and eastern Mashonaland. Many rivers, some quite extensive, of undetermined origin, and traces of ancient mining enterprises, are found in the region, and gold is still washed there. One site is Fura, on the Muira River, about fifteen miles south of the Zambesi. The name Fura is said to be a native corruption of the word Afur, by which the Arabs of the sixteenth century called the district, and that to be the Saharan or south Arabian form of the Hebrew Ophir. The natives are unlike the ordinary Africans, and have a distinctly Jewish type of face. A chief informed Dr. Peters concerning the position of some ancient workings, and, following his directions, the explorer found ruins “of an undoubtedly Semitic type.” Dr. Peters’s hypotheses and evidences must be accepted for what they are worth. Other explorers have found Ophir at various points in Africa and Arabia, and even in India and elsewhere, and have been as satisfied and as sure as he with their identifications.

MINOR PARAGRAPHS.

An instructive address, before the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, was recently delivered by Sir W. Roberts Austen on the progress made in the iron and steel industries during the past century. The great revolution which the discovery of steel brought about is dwelt upon at length, and its far-reaching importance, not only in the iron industry itself but in all other industries and in the destinies of England herself, pointed out. In the early days of the industry it was held that the different qualities of iron were due to the different localities from which the ore was obtained, but late in the eighteenth century the great Swedish chemist, Bergman, of Upsala, clearly showed that carbon is the element to which steel and cast iron owe their distinctive properties. Clouet’s celebrated experiment on the carburization of iron by the diamond followed. “Well might Bergman express astonishment at the action of carbon on iron. Startling as the statement may seem, the destinies of England throughout the century, and especially during the latter half of it, have been mainly influenced by the use of steel. Hardly a step of our progress or an incident of our civilization has not in one way or another been influenced by the properties of iron and steel. It is remarkable that these properties have been determined by the relations subsisting between a mass of iron, itself protean in its nature, and the few tenths per cent of carbon it contains.” In 1800 the production of pig iron in England was about 200,000 tons; in 1898 it was 8,769,249 tons.

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A note in Nature describes an ingenious arrangement for controlling the direction of torpedoes by means of ether waves. Two solenoids, into which are drawn iron cores, are attached to the rudder head, the core which is drawn in depending, of course, upon the direction of the received current. Two rods projecting above the surface of the water receive the waves and are in circuit with a coherer of special type, which affects a relay in the usual way. The actual processes involved in steering and controlling a torpedo are somewhat as follows: The torpedo, containing a suitable combination of the apparatus above mentioned, is launched from a vessel containing the necessary sending apparatus. Suppose the torpedo goes off its course. Then, by means of a switch, an induction coil is supplied with an electric current, and waves or oscillations are generated. These, on reaching the torpedo, pass into the projecting wire and thence reach the coherer. This operates the relay, closing the secondary circuit. An electric current now flows through a “selector” to one of the solenoids, the iron core is sucked into right or left, and the helm is thus turned. When the torpedo has attained a proper course the switch is opened and the waves cease. The vibration in the neighborhood of the coherer restores it to the original resistance; the current passing through it becomes weaker and ceases to affect the relay coil, which therefore opens the secondary circuit and allows the helm to fly back to the midship position. A large model of the apparatus has been constructed, and it is said to work with entire success under all kinds of conditions. The inventors are Mr. Walter Jameson and Mr. John Trotter. It is stated that Nikola Tesla has American patents for a somewhat similar device.

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In the absence of the author, Professor Dewar’s paper on the solidification of hydrogen was read in the British Association by Sir William Crook. It shows that solid hydrogen presents the appearance of frozen water, and not, as had been anticipated by many, of frozen mercury; hence it is now definitely decided that it is not metallic. The temperature of the solid is 16° absolute at thirty-five millimetres pressure, and it melts at 16° or 17° absolute, the practical limit of the temperature obtainable by its evaporation being 14° or 15° absolute. Thus the last of the old gas has been solidified. It was further mentioned, in connection with these statements, that Professor Dewar had succeeded in liquefying helium.

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The organizing committees of the Congresses of Aëronautics and Meteorology--these being cognate subjects--of the Exposition of 1900 have decided to hold the meetings of these bodies in such a manner that all members can attend the sessions of both. The programme arranged for the Aëronautical Congress contemplates the discussion, under aspects which are set forth in detail, of “problems” relating to free balloons, their management and use; captive balloons, steerable balloons, and aviation; and the scientific applications of balloon observations to problems in astronomy, meteorology, and physiology; also of their use for purposes of reconnoissance and topographical surveys, and of photography from balloons. In a different order of ideas, the congress may occupy itself with questions of legislation and international law which concern aëronauts in times of peace and of war.

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Three State catalogues of Ohio plants have heretofore been issued. The first, by J. S. Newberry, was published in the State Agricultural Report in 1859; the second, by H. C. Beardslee, was published in 1874, and was reprinted in the Agricultural Report for 1879; and the third, by W. A. Kellerman and W. C. Werner, was included in the State Geological Report for 1893. This work contains a bibliography, and gives the names of the first known collectors of the less common species. A fourth catalogue, consisting of a checklist of the _Pteridophytes_ and _Spermophytes_, recently published by Prof. W. A. Kellerman, contains the species and varieties numbered serially, as in the State Herbarium of nearly ten thousand sheets, with the sequence of groups as by Engler and Prantl, and the nomenclature as used by Britton and Brown.

NOTES.

The committee of the St. Petersburg Astronomical Society for the revision of the Russian calendar, to make it agree with the Gregorian, has found it necessary to move slowly. The festivals prove a formidable obstacle to the desired reform, and the people will have to be prepared for the change before it can be instituted. The plan now is to use both dates, Russian and Gregorian, together till the new style can be made familiar, and it is proposed to make the double use compulsory on private as well as on public documents and papers.

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A steamboat company is placing its little vessels on the canals of Venice, and the gondolas, which were one of the charms of the city to travelers, are destined to disappear--unless a few may be reserved to gratify the curiosity of tourists.

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The Commissioner of Education of Rhode Island has issued a circular to teachers, calling attention to the work of the Audubon Society for the Preservation of Birds, and to the incalculable value, from various points of view, of bird life, and advises them to foster Nature study as furnishing a natural channel by means of which instruction and information on the subject may readily be brought before the children, and through them to the people generally.

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In a paper on The Ultimate Basis of Time Divisions in Geology, T. C. Chamberlin accepts it as proved that there were no universal breaks in sedimentation or in the fundamental continuity of life, no physical cataclysms attended by universal destruction of life, and that sedimentation has been in constant progress somewhere and life continuous and self-derivative since the beginning. He then raises the question whether this continuity of physical and vital action proceeded by heterogeneous impulses or by correlated pulsations. The author’s conclusion is in favor of the hypothesis of correlated pulsations involving a rhythmical periodicity.

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Nettle fiber is said to be coming into great favor for the manufacture of fine yarns and tissues. Several factories in Germany are using it, and the introduction of the extensive cultivation of nettles into the African colony of the Cameroons is contemplated.

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There are now, according to the last annual Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, thirty-six forest reservations (exclusive of the Afognak Forest and Fish-Culture Reserve in Alaska) in the United States, embracing an estimated area of 46,021,899 acres. This estimate is for the aggregate areas within the boundaries of the reservations, but the lands reserved are only the vacant public lands therein. The actual reserved area is therefore somewhat less than the estimate.

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Experiments made by Professor Dewar and Sir W. Thisleton Dyer, and reported to the British Association, upon the effect of the temperature of liquid hydrogen upon the germinative power of seeds, go to show that life goes on at a temperature so low that ordinary chemical action is practically stopped. Seeds of barley, vegetable marrow, mustard, and the pea were immersed in liquid hydrogen for six hours, cooled to a temperature of 453° F. below the temperature of melting ice, and came out unchanged to the eye, and, when planted, all germinated.

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Sir John Lubbock, having been raised to the peerage, has adopted Lord Avebury as his title, and will be henceforth so known.

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In our obituary list of men known to science are the names of N. E. Green, F. R. A. S., who was distinguished for the excellence of his planetary observations, particularly of Mars, made at Madeira in 1877, and was the second President of the British Astronomical Association, died November 10th, in his seventy-sixth year; Prof. E. E. Hughes, inventor of the Hughes printing telegraph machine, the microphone, and the induction balance, Fellow of the Royal Society, gold medalist, and Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, who was born in London in 1831 and was brought to the United States at an early age; Mr. J. R. Gregory, mineralogist; M. Marion, professor in the Scientific Faculty in the University of Marseilles and Keeper of the Natural History Museum there, who took part in the dredging trips of the Travailleur and the Talisman, and contributed to the _Annales_ of the museum at Marseilles; Dr. Hans Bruno Geinitz, geologist and paleontologist, at Dresden, Saxony, in his eighty-sixth year; Walter Götze, botanist, while on an expedition to German East Africa, December 9th; and Mr. W. T. Suffolk, treasurer of the Royal Microscopical Society of Great Britain.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins and Reports. Connecticut: Twenty-third Annual Report. Part I. Fertilizers. Pp. 92; Bulletin No. 130. Commercial Feeding Stuffs in the Connecticut Market.--North Dakota Weather and Crop Service, November, 1899, and January, 1900. Pp. 8 each.--United States Department of Agriculture: Agrostology Circular No. 54. Smooth Brome-Grass. Pp. 10; No. 57. Experiments with Forage Plants in Ontario. Pp. 3; Meteorological Chart of the Great Lakes. Summary for the Season of 1899. Vol. II, No. 9. By Alfred J. H. Henry and Norman B. Conger. Pp. 28, with maps.--West Virginia: Bulletin No. 61. Sheep-Feeding Experiments. By J. H. Stewart and Horace Atwood. Pp. 10; No. 62. A Study of the Effect of Incandescent Gaslight on Plant Growth. By L. C. Corbett. Pp. 38, with plates.

American Grocer Publishing Company. Scientific Testimony against the use of Alum in Food. (Evidence before the United States Senate Investigating Committee.) Pp. 12.

Andrews, William. The Diuturnal Theory of the Earth, or Nature’s System of constructing a Stratified Physical World. New York: Myra Andrews and Ernest G. Stevens, 18 West Forty-fifth Street.

Benson, Lawrence Sluter. Principles of Finite Values in Mathematics. Pp. 6.

Bland, Rev. J. P., Cambridge, Mass. What we Know about God. Pp. 12.