The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1879-09-11
USEFUL AND SCIENTIFIC.

USEFUL AND SCIENTIFIC.
MINNESOTA ships $4,000 barrels of
flour every week. The average cost Of
freight to the seaboard is 60 cents.
IT is estimated by the Lamberman'S
Gazette that the annual consumption of
railroad ties or sleepers is 100000 !;
or 80 years growth of $4,000 acres.
SCRAPING hogs by machinery is one
of the innovations adopted by the pack
lighthouses of Chicago. As the animals
pass over revolving flukes they are
scraped clean at the rate of 10 hogs per
minute. This process occasions an i'm
mense saving of time and of manual la
Dor, while the work is done quite as
thoroughly.
BEANS are good for food in every situa-
ton, especially at sea, because the seeds
are living and the phOsphates contained
in them are in more or less soluble
condition. If beans are hard, dry, and
incapable of terminating, their phos-
pilates will need to be rendered soluable
by citric acid or some other available
agent, otherwise the system will be insult
ficiently supplied with nutriment.
In Normandy cider is said to be pre-
served by putting about half bottle of
sweet oil in the cask and plugging the
bung with a wad of cotton. The oil be-
ing light can not combine with the cider,
but forms thin covering, which pre-
vents the oxygen of the air coming in
contact with it. The cotton filters the
air entering as the cider is drawn off, so
that no insects or impurities can pass.
Cider in bottles is put in cellars, the bot
ties being covered with a few inches of
earth, which keeps the cider at an equa-
BILE temperature and prevents the bottles
from bursting.
COMPRESSED FLoUR.-We are now
told that -four subjected to a hydraulic
pressure of 800 tons can be reduced in
volume more than % per cent. and yet
retain all the qualities it had previous
TO such violent treatment. Some of the
flour was put into Theoretically tight
tins. At the same time other -four man.
ufactured from the same wheat, but not
compressed, was also sealed up. After
three months samples of both kinds
were opened and examined. The pressed
was pronounced to be the best. Twelve
months after this another examination
was made with the same results. Two
kinds were kneaded into loaves and
baked. The pressed flour made the best
bread. In another year after the boxes
were again opened and examined, and
while the loose flour showed moldiness,
the pressed was sweet and retained all
its qualities. Made into bread the same
difference was observable.
ANOTHER USE FOR PLATINUM.-There
appears to be no doubt as to the success
and value of the new French process for
covering iron with platinum, satisfacto-
Nv demonstration of the modus operandi
having recently been given at the labora-
tory of the Bank of England. In this
operation, as now perfected, the iron is
first coated with a preparation of lead
and copper, after which it is ready for
the platinum composition. The latter
consists of ten parts of platinum convert
ed into chloride, mixed with five parts of
ether, and permitted to evaporate in the
open air; the residue is incorporated with
compound of twenty parts bOrate of
lead, eleven parts of red lead, some oil of
lavender and fifty parts of amyle alcohol.
Into this mixture the article to be coated
is dipped, then allowed to dry in the air,
and, finally, heated to a moderate tenn
perature in a muffle furnace. The pro-
cess is intended more particularly for the
coating of cast-iron articles, but is also
applicable TO the covering of other met
ais in order to preserve them from oXida-
ton under the action of air, fire or acid
gases.
New WEATHER THEORY.-The Rev.
Henry Roe, F. r. A. s., of Pennington
Rectory, Sherburne, writes to the Lon
don Times, concerning new weather
theory. In Mr.. Roe's opinion dry and
wet periods succeed one another in al
ternate waves of nearly equal length.
Not that this equality of duration is quite
absolute, or that the wave of one period
is exactly the fac-simile of that of cor
responding period of an earlier or later
time. but there is enough of regularity
and uniformity about about the wave to
make the family likeness clearly dis
cernible. These periods extend over
three whole years for each, and the fol-
lowing simple rules will enable any one
to work out the several cycles of years
for himself: /. When the number rep
resenting any given year is even and ex-
actly divisible by three, that year is the
middle one of three cold and wet sum-
mers. ?. When the number represent
ING the yearis odd and Invisible by three,
then that year is the middle of triad of
dry and hot summers. For example,
1860 is even and divisible by three, and
the prevailing characteristic of the three
years 1859, 1860, 1861, was wet, or wet
and cold; and, again, 1868 is odd and
diyisible by three, and every body re-
members 1862, 1868 and 1864 as bright,
hot, and dry summers. Mr.. Roe does
not venture to extend these rules to other
places than England, but he shows from
observations extending over q years
that they coincide closely with the
weather records in that country.