The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1879-09-18
USEFUL AND SCIENTIFIC

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hour every week. The average cost O
freight to the seaboard is 60 cents.
IT is estimated by the Lalmbermau,
daSette that the annual consumption O
rallroad ties or sleepers is 10000. 900
OF 81 years growth of $4,000 acres.
sCRAP1NG hogs by machinery is one
OF the innovations adopted by the pack
lighthouses of Chicago. As the animals
pass over revolving fiukes they are
scraped clean at the rate of 10 hogs DE,
minute. This process occasions an i'm.
mense saving of time and of manual Ia.
Dor, while the work is done m1ite as
thoroughly.
BEANS are good for food in every sit,1a-
ton, especially at sea, because the seeds
are living and the phosphates contained
IN them are in a more or less soluble
condition. If beans are hard, dry, and
incapable of terminating, their phos-
pilates will need to be rendered soluable
by cltr1c acid or some-other available
agent, otherwise the system will be insuf-
ficiently supplied with nutriment.
COMPRESSED FLOUR.-We are now
told that flour subjected to hydraulic
pressure OF 800 tons can be reduced in
volume more than 25 per cent. and vet
retain all the qualities it had preyious
to such violent treatment. Some of the
hour was put into hermetically tight
TINS. At the same time other flour 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-
ry 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 |
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
a 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 moderate tenn
oerature in muffie furnace. The pro-
'ess is intended more particularly for the
coating of cast-iron articles, but is also
applicable to the covering of other met
his in order to preserve them from oxida-
ion under the action of air, fire or acid
gases.
New WEATHER THEORY Rev.
Henry Roe, +. K. A. S., of Ponvtincton
Sectory, Sherburne, writes to the Lon
ION Times, concerning new weather
heory. In Mr.. Roe's opinion dry and
vet periods succeed one another in al
ornate waves of nearly equal length.
Not that this equality of duration is quite
Ibsolute, or that the wave of one period
S exactly the fac-simile of that of a cor
period of an earlier or a later
ime, but there is enough of regularity
md uniformity about about the wave to !,
make the family likeness clearly dis
ernible. These periods extend over
hree whole years for each, and the fol-
owing simple rules will enable any one
0 work out the several cycles of years
Dr. himself: l. When the number rep ,
esenting any given year is even and ex-
city divisible by three, that year is the
liddle one of three cold and wet sum- G
hers. 2. When the number represent v
lg the year is odd and divisible by three. t
hen that year is the middle of a triad of a
ry and hot summers. For example, i
800 is even and divisible by three, and t
lie prevailing characteristic of the three b
ears 1859, 1860, 1861, was wet, or wet v
nd cold; and, again, 1868 is odd and "
visible by three, and every body re- f
lembers 1862, 1868 and 1864 as bright. a
OF, and dry summers. Mr.. Roe does n
OF venture to extend these rules to other C
laces than England, but he shows from D
oservations extending over q years Il
lat they coincide closely with the fl
oa har rno<,Jr g., ~