The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1880-09-30
FACTS AND FIGURES.

FACTS AND FIGURES.
The time required for trip from
New York to New Orleans in 1900 was
IA days; in 1889 it was IL days 49,
hours, and now it is COZ hours.
Among the fish of the United
States, the cod comes first in money
value, the salmon second. the mackcrcl
third, and then the menhaden. In
weight the last stands highest.
Postage is cheapest in England
and the United States, and costlier in
Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy,
Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, in
the order named.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers is IL years old and now has
191 subdivisions, comprising q men,
bership of nine-tenths of the locomotive
engineers on the continent.
The Canadian Government has adj
vertised for tenders for the cOnstruc-
ton of telegraph line along the line
of the Canadian Pacific Railway from
Selkirk to the western boundary of
Manitoba.
Several steamers have been lately
built at Rostock for a Russian COM
mercial firm, designed specially for
service on the Caspian Sea. They will
be worked with two screws, and the
heating apparatus has been so designed
as to allow the use of Russian petro..
leum.
There has just been completed at
Pittsburgh 400, 900 pound steam shear
for the Pennsylvania Railroad Com
pany: It will be placed in the COM
pany's shops at Altoona, where it will
be used for cutting old steel rails, which
are there converted into car wheels and
other castings.
Petroleum is the fourth of our ex-
port commodities, though the first arti-
fetal well was sunk only twenty-one
years ago. The annual production is
now some $4,000, 900 barrels. A larger
proportion of petroleum is sent abroad
than of any other article except cotton,
the export being about two-thirds of
the total production. The average
value per gallon of the refined illumin-
ating oil exported was So cents in 1864,
70 in 1865, 80 in 1870, % in 1873, II in
1874, IA in 1876, and IL in 1879.
From experiments made on young
soldiers by M. Marcy, it appears that
after gymnastic course the men
breathed about twice as much air as be-
fore. and, although the number of res
pirations is reduced from twenty to
twelve per minute, the amplitude of
these respirations is more than quad
rupled. At first the respiration is con-
siderably modified by running at the
rate of 600 meters in four minutes, but
after from four to five months practice
at this kind of exercise there was no
perceptible effect.
The green color given to preserved
vegetables is generally obtained by
means of the salts of copper, the pres
ence of which is dangerous. Lecourt,
a preserve manufacturer of Paris, and
Prof. Guillemare, of the Lycee of
Rheims, have devised a new process for
such celebration. 1t consists in adding
to the vegetables q surcharge of chloro-
phyll, so that after the inevitable loss
caused by boiling they still retain suffi-
cient to present the green color Of fresh
vegetables. Lecourt and Guillemare
obtained the green thus utilized from
table vegetables, especially spinach,
which contains great quantity that is
easily extracted.
The distance required to stop trains
increases very rapidly with the increase
of rates of speed. In experiments
made in England, the Westinghouse
brake stopped q train moving at the
rate of AIS miles an hour at point
only 485 feet distant from the place
where the brake was applied, but when
the speed was increased to 81 miles per
hour the distance run after the applica-
ton of the brake was l, 1856 feet, and
when the speed of the train was in
creased to 81 miles per hour the dis
lance traversed after the application of
the brake was 2,O55 feet. Similar re-
suits were obtained when other brakes
were used.
-Bureaur de tabac, or tobacco shops,
are one of the means which the French
Government has of pensioning deserv-
ing or undeserving persons. The man
ufacture and sale of tobacco being
Government monopoly, the appoint
ment of person to a bureau de tabac is
equivalent to a pension varying in value
according to the position Of the bureau.
During the year 1869 one hundred and
sixty-five bureaur were granted. and
amongst those who have obtained them
are Mile. Mafrast, daughter of the
President of the Constituent Assembly
in 1848, and Nine. d Alton Shee, widow
of a former peer of France, who has left
behind him some unreliable memories.