Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/590

574 gathered, put in paper bags, and hung up to wait and see, or rather to wait and hear, what would happen. For days these pods, as they dried, kept popping in the bags, and the seeds, small and polished, very like rice in shape, were secured. . . . But when the seeds were gathered there was another problem to be solved—how to thread them. The finest, sharpest needle would split them every time. The friend who had threaded them told me how it could be done. The seed was to be cut off at each end with a very fine file. This was a labor of love, and the necklace was pretty enough to pay for the trouble."

Crystallization of Metallic Oxides.—M. Moissan has succeeded, with the high temperature obtained in a newly devised electrical furnace, in fusing and crystallizing many of the metallic oxides. At temperatures ranging from 2,000° to 3,000° C, magnesia, lime, and strontia crystallize and then quickly melt; boric acid, protoxide of titanium, and alumina are volatilized; and the oxides of the iron family, stable at high temperatures, furnish melted masses bristling with little crystals. These important results were only the prelude to still more remarkable experiments intended to lead up to the preparation of carbon under high pressure, and the artificial production of the diamond. Having studied the solubility of carbon in a certain number of metals in fusion—such as aluminum, iron, manganese, chromium, uranium, silver, and platinum—and in a metalloid, silicon, he succeeded in obtaining by fusion in one of these metals new varieties of graphite; but he was able to produce crystallized carbon, or diamond, only by performing his experiments under high pressure. When iron in fusion is saturated with carbon, different results are obtained according to the temperature to which the mass is raised. Between 1,100° and 1,200° C, a mixture of amorphous carbon and graphite is obtained, and at 3,000° C. graphite exclusively in beautiful crystals. If a high pressure is introduced, the conditions of crystallization are completely changed. The process employed by the author resulted in the production of three kinds of carbon—graphite in small quantity when the cooling was quickly done, a carbon of a chestnut color in very thin flakes, and a small quantity of a dense carbon which was isolated by treatment with the strongest acids. The very minute fragments scratched rubies and burned in oxygen at 1,000° C. They seem, therefore, to be incontestably diamond. Some of the fragments are black and others transparent. M. Moissan's reporter speaks of his having, in the production of these diamonds, surprised one of the secrets of Nature—ignoring the diamonds obtained several years ago, under a similar high pressure, from hydrocarbons by Mr. Hannay, of Edinburgh.

East African Finery.—Among the presents which Mrs. French-Sheldon received from the Masai when passing through the East African country called Kilimegalia, were the characteristic articles, a vulture-feather pannier, vulture-feather shoulder capes, dancing masks of various kinds, shields, swords, and a collarette made of cropped ostrich feathers stuck through leather, so that the quills make a rough surface on the inner side. "This is worn only by the warrior who has killed twelve persons, and resembles in theory the robe of Janus, as the roughness on the inner side produced by the quills excoriates the surface of the neck of the wearer. The warrior who gave me this collar had the blood streaming from his throat to his waist. One warrior presented me with a wooden case filled with ostrich feathers, which he carried with him to replace the feathers in his warrior mask and for other decorations. I bought several of the cow skins worn by the women as clothing and for bedding at night, for the cold is extreme. They presented me also with a dancing wand, and one of their nebana, or cloths made of strips of white cotton and embellished with red, of various designs, which they sling from their shoulders; also a colobus monkey tail, which they wear under their knees, over the long oval bells, and a hyena tail decorated with a lion mane and colobus monkey tails, which they suspend from their shoulders as an emblem of war."

The Masais of East Africa.—The Masais of East Africa, according to Mrs. French-Sheldon, are true warriors and raiders. They keep a subject tribe, the Wa-sombutta, who do their hunting and what meager agriculture they indulge in. The people of this tribe are insignificant in appearance, and,