The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1867-11-26
Scientific and Mechanical.

A firm in Philadelphia have recently patented
brick SO shaped that when two are placed end
to end circular space is left at the junction
This circular space connecting from course to
course, wall formed with them is, to a certain
extent, hollow, and admits of currents of air
through it, either heated or otherwise. Each
brick is nine inches square and three inches
thick, the size Of two common bricks, so that
only half the usual number is required to do a
rod of brickwork and as they are laid with very
little more labor than common brick work may
be done at considerable saving. A common
brick is used at the angle of each course
A shower of rain as red as blood fell near Day
ton, Ohio, recently 1t was so manifest that it
mpregnated the clods Of earth, many of which
were like ruddle. Several country people who
witnessed it were dreadfully alarmed, imagining
it to be some dreadful omen of coming misfor-
tune, and very many who did not see it fall, came
in the course of the day to the discolored soil
It requires thirty thousand worms to produce
five pounds of silk. If at the present time
million and half pounds are imported annually
into Great Britain, it therefore requires nine
thousand millions of insects to supply the raw
silk for British manufacture.
1t is singular fact that steel dipped in the
Juice of the nattle becomes flexible. A professor
who has made the medicinal properties of wild
plants his peculiar study, states that lint dipped
in nettle juice, and put to the nostril, has been
known to stay the bleeding of the nose when all
other remedies have failed; and adds that four
teen or fifteen Of the seeds ground into powder,
and taken daily, will cure the swelling in the
neck known by the name of goitre, without in any
way injuring the general health.
An Englishman proposes to manufacture
substitute for gold, which he terms British
Il i &c -, 81
with four parts of copper and manganese; and
zinc alloy of iron with two of nickle and ten of
copper.
r. Chloroform has been used with success as a
motive power in several steam engines now work
ing in Paris the vapor acts exactly like steam,
and while it exerts power one side Of the
piston, is condensed in the other. The alternate
vaporation and condensation can be continued
with very little waste of the chloroform, and a
much less quantity of fuel is necessary than in
an ordinary engine. Marine engines on this
principle are now being constructed in Paris,
and should it succeed on large scale, there can
be no doubt it can be extended to locomotives,
in which case great saving would result, not
only in coke but in wear and tare, as locomotives
on this principle would be less bulky and conse-
quently of less weight, while it would not be
necessary to load the tender to half the extent to
take fuel for the same distance.
water-tight cement may be made by mixing
equal parts of red and white lead with sufficient
boiled linseed oil to make it Of the proper con-
sistency. .~Ergr - gETf4s1 zx &
An Englishman has lately patented certain
improvements in the construction of respirators,
50 that the vitiated or expired air may be con-
Quoted away without mingling with the pure air
to be inhaled, through metal channels, and made
to impart heat to the pure air by it's passage
through them,