Ultraviolet rays have turned Canadian insulators purple

SCIENTIFIC SPECIALS.

In a recent experiment. the addition of one per cent, of vanadium increased the tensile strength of steel from 61 to 69 tons per square inch.

Two German scientists announce the discovery of a new anaesthetic having all the virtues of cocaine without the latter's secondary ill effects. The new substance is called "allypine." It deadens pain by local application, and does not contain poison.

The effect of ultra-violet rays of light on some kinds of glass is strik­ingly shown at high altitudes. At a mountain station of the Canadian Pa­cific railway — 5,000 or 6.000 feet high — green glass telephone insulators have changed to brilliant purple.

Many observations have convinced Mabel S. Nelson, a British psychologist, that men hear better than women, and that both men and women hear farther with the right than the left ear. Men are clearly superior in recognizing blue, and women are pos­sibly superior in recognizing yellow.

The atmosphere contains a great quantity of solid matter, usually imperceptible, though visible when a ray of sunlight enters a dark room. A. Ditte states that a cubic meter of the air of Paris usually contains six to eight milligrammes of dust — sometimes 23 milligrammes — but away from cit­ies there is less. Nearly a third of the city dust is organic matter containing living germs. The dust usually carries a few metals — sodium, calcium, magnesium, aluminum, and especially iron, with nickel and cobalt, the last three being brought to the air in meteoric dust from space.