By Isle of Wight Observer
The Isle of Wight Observer of 27th July, 1912 had some interesting observations and views on the natural world.
SCIENCE NOTES AND NEWS
—–
THUNDER AND FOOD.
The problem of the curdling of milk and the rapid putrefaction of meat during thunderstorms is an old one, but it does not seem to have been satisfactorily solved. Artificial electrical fields, as tried by Professor A. Trillet, at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, seem to have no effect on either milk or meat. The lowering of atmospheric tension doling a thunderstorm, however, has been found to bring about the emanation of gases from the soil, and these probably aid decomposition and the growth of putrefactive organisms. This is suggested as a possible explanation also of the increase of epidemic disease and the turn for the worse of large wounds during a period of low barometer.
RAINBOW VARIETIES.
Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red are the colours of the rainbow, as any child knows. It is true, however, of only a very few rainbows, as C. Fitshugh Talman some time ago demonstrated. The colours of rainbows vary with their width, and their width varies with the size of the raindrops, big drops producing narrow bows, with bright clearly-defined colours, small drops producing wide bows with pale colours. Here are the colours as generally seen: (1) When the raindrops average one millimetre in diameter, violet, light blue, bluish green, green, yellow, orange, light red, dark red. (2) When the drops average 3-10 of a millimetre in diameter, violet, light blue, bluish green, yellow and orange. (3) When the drops average 1-10 of a millimetre, very pale violet, violet, whitish blue, whitish green, whitish yellow, pale yellow. (4) When the drops average 1-20 of a millimetre (fog), white tinged with violet, bright white, white tinged with yellow, very pale yellow.