Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/443

Rh with an aureole, while the shadows of other objects, notably of the tower of the inn, assume gigantic dimensions, all within the compass of a grand picture-frame defined by a rainbow. A similar phenomenon has been observed on the top of the Egisch-horn, above the Aletsch glacier, in Switzerland. Another series of striking effects is produced in the Brocken by the excessive precipitation and deposition of moisture. Guests at the inn say that the telegraph-posts sometimes appear a yard thick under the accumulation of frost upon them, and the wires are frequently broken under the weight of the ice with which they become covered. The extremely fine drops of water, suddenly frozen, deposit themselves in crystalline figures upon everything against which the wind drives them. Under these effects Brocken landscapes take on a fantastic aspect in winter, which is heightened, when the sun is shining, by the reflections from the innumerable minute crystals.

Decrease of the English Death-Rate.—The English Registrar-General shows, from a review of the mortality of England during the ten years (1871-80), that the mean annual death-rate has fallen to 21-27 per thousand, the lowest average since civil registration began. With this general fall is an increase in the death-rates in the later periods of life. This is also significant of improved tenure of life, for it shows that a larger proportion of persons live to be old enough to die in the later periods. Dr. Ogle gives the credit of the lessened death-rate among young people to improved sanitation, which has removed many fruitful sources of mortality, while by aiding the survival of weakly persons it may have had a tendency to increase the death-rate of the later periods. The changes in the death-rates. Dr. Ogle adds, "have given to the community an annual addition of 1,800,047 years of life shared among its members; and, allowing that the changes are the direct consequence of sanitary interference, we must regard this addition of nearly two million years of life as an annual income derived from money invested in sanitation."

Cardiac Overstrain.—The "Lancet" improves the occasion of the recent deaths of two persons by syncope after severe muscular exertion—one during an Alpine expedition, and the other after a sharp row on the river—to enforce the necessity of undergoing suitable preparation by training before engaging in unusual exercises. Both of the deceased persons, it says, "were of an age when degenerative changes in the muscular tissue of the heart or of the vessels would hardly be expected, and the syncope must have resulted from the sudden strain thrown on the cavities of a heart weakened previously by a long period of inactivity, and before the concordant action between the heart and great vessels had been established. This is always a danger when violent exercise is suddenly undertaken, and the mischief is of course greater in elderly persons than in young adults."

How Rice is Cleaned and Polished.—According to the reports transmitted by our consular officers from England and Germany, the processes for cleaning rice are quite complicated. The grain, after having been taken to the top story of the mill and blown and sieved, is divested of its paddy or husks by passing it over a sieve having a jumping action or tapping motion at the bottom, or by being carried between stones like those usually employed for grinding wheat. These stones, in England, are of a composition of magnesian calcinate and emery, and always keep a sharp face through the difference in hardness between the emery and the magnesian cement. Shelling-stones covered with cork have been tried and given up; and in Italy a surface of hard wood set on end is sometimes used, like the Burmese native hand-mills. In the process of shelling, a meal or flour is made from the crushing of the rice-paddy and the three pellicles which, inside of the paddy, inclose the grain, and is removed by apparatus adapted for the purpose. The busks are separated from the grain by a blast or exhaust, and the pellicles which still adhere to the grain by bruising in a mortar. The rice is then winnowed again, milled, re-screened, and polished, in polishers that generally consist of a sheep-skin-covered drum—the skin of a South Down is preferred, on account of the thickness of its wool—which revolves inside of a fixed wire casing about eighteen hundred to two