Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1873-10-22
Scientific Notes.

BRICKS made of blast furnace Stag
can be produced at low cost, and are
said to be less absorbent than bricks
made of ordinary clay by forty or fifty
per cent.
PRoF GEGENBAUER, of Jena, the
Well-knOwn comparative anatomist, has
been nominated Professor of Anatomy
and director of the Anatomical Insti-
tute in the University of Heidelberg.
PROF. W FL. FLOWER, of the Royal
College, of Surgeons of England, has
sent the skeleton Of jackal, with all
the modern improvements In articula-
ton, to the Smithsonian institution at
Washington.
ACCORDING to the report of the geo.
logical survey of Newfoundland, a vein
Of TOMBSTONE, rivalling in texture and
quality the famous oil-stone of Tur-
key, has been discovered on the island.
1t occurs in great quantity.
A NOVEL application of ice was made
at ST. Louis the other day, when forty
five tons were used to cool and thus
contract the iron tubes of the mammoth
suspension bridge across the MISSISSIPPI
pi to allow the insertion of the connect
ing tubes.
ACCORDING to San Francisco news
paper, M Alfred Paraf's method of
manufac uring butter from fresh fat is
now IN operation on large scale In
that city. The company manufacture
butter out of suet from fresh beef, and
assert that the article will be in every
respect equal to that made of cream.
The suet is first ground, and then
thrown into huge tank containing
about one foot of water. The mass is
next raised to blood heat, and after
half hours stirring is left to settle.
The scraps fall, and the pure fat re-
mains. This is collected, wrapped in
cloths, and submitted to presses of tre-
mendous power. The oleine oozes
through the cloth and is conveyed into
another tub, where, after the addition
of little milk and rennet, it is agita-
ted in the ordinary manner of cream to
produce butter.
In communication to the London
Times, MIR. Hodgson Pratt, of the
Workingmen's Club and Institute
Union, testifes to the great value to
visitors at the Guildhall Museum of
the Saturday afternoon lectures by
such distinguished men as Professor
Owen, DIR. Sharp, Mr.. Fellowes, and
Professor Plower, who have generously
given their valuable time as guides to
the parties visiting the collections Of
geology, of Greek or Egyptian antiqui-
ties, OF comparative anatomy, and other
treasures in science, art, or nature.
Mr.. Hodgson suggests that the govern
ment should provide lecturers at the
several public museums Of art, science
and natural history in England, so that
at certain hours weekly each depart
ment should have an able exposition,
WHO should, in clear and popular style,
indicate the range and value of the
knowledge which such collection illus
trated and founded. At the end of
such exposition questions might be
answered, and the names of books
suggested for those who wished to
pursue the great topic thus opened to
their view.
SINCE the first well-defned suspicion
Of milk as the agent of disseminating
typhoid fever, evidence has accumula-
ted which proves that the subject is
one of Importance by no means minor.
DR.. Bateson, Medical Inspector of
Leeds, England, has just added i'm
portant testimony on the subject. To-
wards the close of the year 1872, ac-
cording to him. fever appeared in
Leeds in isolated places, and in dis
tricts where the sanitary condition was
unexceptionable. The cause of this
for while completely bafded discov-
cry; but at length it was found that
| fha of tho
town supplied every house in which
fever was present. But the milk dealer
got his milk from a farmhouse some
distance away, and all within his own
house were we'll. Upon visiting the
farmhouse six persons were found suf-
fering from the disease, lying in
room adjoining that in which the milk
cans were kept, and nursed by the
woman who managed the dairy. Of the
eighty persons attacked fourteen died.
A dairyman in Glasgow, having fever
in his house, supplied seventy-three
families, living in five different streets,
and in these families thirty six cases Of
fever occurred.
In paper read before the Britipa
Association for the Advancement os
Science, on the subject of coal, Pro-
lessor Williamson appears to take the
ground that there were in the coal
period no representatives Of the Dicoty-
ledonous aid Observation-Disclosures
plants-that is, plants of the ordinary
towering types. Several such have
been included in published lists, but,
on investigation, they all melt away.
One, which has been believed to be a
palm, the Professor showed to be fern.
Another, regarded as near ally OF the
broom-rapes, was now known to be
nothing of the kind. The evidence
that any such plants existed during
this early age Of the world was of the
most unsatisfactory kind, and all the
known carboniferous deposits from
Greenland and Australia told the same
tale of cosmopolitan vegetation limit
ed to the Cryptogamic and Coniferous
types Physiologically these fossils
differ from living plants of the same
types in the existence of an exygenous
process of growth in the stems OF
Colomites and Sycopods-the one OF
the horse-tail family, the other moss
which has no counterpart IN existing