Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1879-09-10
CURIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC.

CURIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC.
.i-i STEAM FROM SALT WATER.
Salt water requires more heat to pro.
duce a given amount of steam than
fresh water. -
PROTECTING WIRE ROPE.
To protect wire rope pour some coal
tar from a can on the rope and in the
groove of the wheel while running.
"CHERRY RED" HEAT.
A "cherry red i" heat On iron in the
dark is $50 degrees; in daylight 884 de-
grees; in the fire, 1850.
AMMONIA IN SEA WATER.
The presence of ammonia in the water
of existing seas is general, although its
quantity is variable. 1t exists to a
notable extent in gypsum, which, being
a sedimentary formation, gives evidence
that ammonia was also in the ocean
water of the seas of early geological
times.
NEW BELT MATERIAL.
Belts manufactured from fine linen
stock have been made and successfully
employed. They are quite strong and
flexible, and are dressed with sperm oil
and black lead to prevent them from
slipping and cracking. They are said to
be forty per cent cheaper than leather,
and are not affected by temperature and
do not stretch.
cows MILK IN NERVOUS DISORDERS.
The use of cows milk in nervous
disorders is very highly recon-
mended by our best physicians.
They prescribe it to be used
at all hours, and recommend the patient
to drink as much as four quarts per day
if agreeable. The constant and exclusive
use of this article after time becomes
very tiresome, and the milk acquires an
unpleasant taste. It may in a degree be
avoided by heating the milk and adding
enough salt to flavor it, in this form do
ing as much good as in any other.
DYNAMITE IN REMOVING sNAGs.
Dynamite has been used with economy
and success in removing the snags which
DISTRACTED navigation in the Waikato
river, New Zealand. By means of a
plain wooden tube having piece of
glass in the bottom the part of the snag
to be bored for the insertion of the
charge was easily selected. One peculi-
arity of the action of the explosive has
been noted-the stumps were invariably
cut off clean at the bottom of the augur-
hole, leaving a surface as fat as that
which would be left by a cross-cut saw.
SKULLS OF MURDERERs.
A communication to the Anthropologi-
cal Society of Paris contains some in
teresting results of comparative ex-
animation by DR.. Border of the skulls
of thirty five murderers. They were all
large like those of prehistoric men, and
resembling the latter also in the ex-
cessive performance of the parietal
region over the small frontal develop.
ment. The large capacities of the skull
were often associated with the cerebral
anomalies and defects, and in most cases
the influence of heredity was clearly
traceable.
ARTESIAN WELLS.
It is stated that the successful borings
for water in France county, South
Australia, promise to render large
district, formerly almost destitute of
water, highly valuable for agricultural
or pastoral purposes. One artesian we'll,
400 miles north of Adelaide, sunk to the
depth of $40 feet, yields 10000 gallons
of excellent water day. Much of the
arid and inhospitablc region between the
coast and the rich lands which have been
discovered in the interior of the con-
tinent is expected to be reclaimed by a
systematic tapping of the springs sup
posed to exist beneath.
THE AZTECs. ....
Senior Altamirano, of Mexico, the best
Aztec scholar living, claims the proof is
conclusive that the Aztecs did not come
to Mexico from Asia, as has long been
universally believed, but that they were
a race originated in the unsubmerged
parts of America, as old as the Asiatics
themselves, and that that country may
even have been peopled from this. From
the ruins recently found, the most
northern of any yet discovered, the in
dications of improved architecture, the
work of digerent ages, can be traced in
continual chain to Mexico, where they
eliminate in massive and imposing
structures, thus giving some proof by
circumstantial evidence to Altamirano's
reasoning. But now, as to the antiquity
of American man as shown by the yet
recent discoveries in Colorado.-Mr. E..
z. Elliott, IN Popular Science Monthly for
Aug1st. -.e .ffo.sEf* $3.50
ANTS AND THEIR QUARRELs.
According to Sir John Lubbock's OBJ
servations, ants belonging to the same
nest never quarrel among themselves;
he has never seen any ill-temper in any
of his nests. Again, ants appear to show
great kindness to inmates of their own
nests which happen to be in straits. In
one of Sir Johns nests of formica fusca
was poor ant which had come into the
world without antenn@. Never having
previously met with such a case, he
watched her with great interest, but she
never appeared to leave the nest. At
1ov, 9th opo Ior, ho fo,,,I h.