Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/525

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
POPULAR MISCELLANY.
509

the basin in which it is found the surface is sand, either white and barren or brown and loamy, with occasional ridges or distributions of limestone. Next below this is segregated limestone, hard and approaching crystallization, the interstices filled with light-brown tenacious clay, followed by compact light-red sandstone of various thickness, fading in color and consistence until it touches the water and merges into quicksand. On the lowest flats fissures occur in the limestone; the orifices are very small and irregular, but reach to the underlying quicksand.. The following is the result of an analysis of this mineral caoutchouc:

Moisture 0.4682
Carbon 64.7300
Hydrogen 11.6300
Ash 1.7900
Fixed carbon 1.0050
Oxygen, and other unestimated matters 20.3768
———
100.0000

Living Out-of-Doors.—A retreat for consumptives should possess above all things an equable temperature throughout the year, so as to favor living out-of-doors at all seasons. The advantages possessed in this respect by the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands can hardly be surpassed. The climate there, says Dr. H. B. White, in the "Proceedings" of the Kings County Medical Society, in its average temperature and in equability, may be said to be perfect. These islands are situated between 19° and 22° north latitude, where the trade-winds blow with great regularity about ten months of the year. Though lying within the tropics, the temperature is modified by the constant fresh breezes. In the language of Hawaii, there is no word for weather. The most favorable situations for consumptives are, according to Dr. White, Honolulu, Lahaina, Ulepalekua, Kailua, and Ewa. The main temperature on and near the coasts is 75° to 79° for the warmest months, and 72° for the coldest. During Dr. White's four years' residence at Lahaina the maximum was 84°, and the minimum 61°, while the general average for the summer months was 82° for mid-day, and about 72° for the winter months. By ascending the mountains a few miles inland, almost any degree of temperature can be obtained.

"Farewell."
Farewell! I thought you loved me once—that dream is past forever!
Farewell! I must forget you now; that is, I must endeavor.
From all your vows of constancy I set you free henceforth,
And you needn't try them on again, I know now what they're worth.
 
You have quite ceased to care for me; with science you've been bitten,
Since you read that very stupid book that Mr. Darwin's written.
I can't think what it signifies; I'm sure I never wondered
Whether we all descended from one "type" or from a hundred.
 
If you remained unaltered, I shouldn't care the least
About the variability of any bird or beast;
But you carry out the principle of change and variation,
So I leave you to your science—may it prove a consolation!
 
I call it such a waste of time, bothering about these things,
Racking one's brains to find out why opossums haven't wings.
Of course, it's very curious spiders should live on flies,
And that the tails of peacocks should be so full of eyes.
 
Of course, it's all most interesting, there's not a doubt about it,
But I think that you and I, dear, were happier without it;
So I act on this idea of Natural Selection,
And beg yon to accept of my definitive rejection.
 
Yet the light of all my life is quenched, my happiness gone by;
I sha'n't "struggle for existence;" I shall just lie down and die.
Each hour I live apart from you my misery increases,
And it's all through Mr. Darwin and his "Origin of Species."

Improvements in Photography.—Both the chemist and the practical photographer will be interested in a communication from Mr. M. Carey Lea, published in the American Journal of Science, for July on certain new means of developing the latent photographic image. It has been supposed that only very few bodies possess this singular power of developing, but Mr. Lea's researches show—1. That, on the contrary, such bodies are very numerous; 2. That, contrary to what has been generally held,