Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-01-01
USEFUL AND SCIENTIFIC.
PHoroGRArHs IN NATURAL CoLo,

4
PHOTOGRAPHS IN NATURAL Color.
Captain Abney, the well known En-
glish photographer, has succeeded i
tobtaining pictures of the solar spec
trum in its natural colors, both on silye
plates and on compounds of silver he'll
in place by collodiOn. The photograph
are produced by oxidation of silve
compounds when placed in the spec
trum, the coloring matter being due ap
parently to a mixture of two differen
sizes of molecules of the same chemica
composition, one of which absorbs a
the blue end and the other at the ret
end OF the spectrum; and the sizes o
the molecules are unalterable while ex
| posed to the same wave-lengths as those
! by which they were produced. Captain
Abney believes that the colors may bs
preserved unchanged when exposed to
ordinary daylight. He has thus sue.
ceeded in explaining the action BY
which Becquerel some years ago OBJ.
tanned photographs in colors as pro.
duced by oxidation, and not due to in.
reference. Becquerel's photographs
were fugitive; Captain Abney appears
to have succeeded in ''fixing" his. An
exposure of two minutes with wide
slit was sufficient to produce the pictures
of the spectrum. J 71at ...5t
FRENCH METHOD OF FLOORING
The improved method of laying down
floors which has been adopted in France
is, it appears, obtaining wide applica-
ton. The plan consists in simply put
ting down the flooring, not, as COM
monty, on jOists, but in imbedding the
boarding in asphalt-such floors as these
being found particularly adapted, among
other examples, for the ground stories
of barracks, hospitals, churches, court
houses, etc. According to this method,
pieces OF oak, usually two and one-balf
to four inches broad, twelve to thirty
inches thick, are pressed down into a
layer of hot asphalt not quite half an
inch thick in the well known herring
bone pattern. To insure complete ad-
hesion of the wood to the asphalt, and
obtain the smallest possible joints, the
edges of the pieces of wood are planed
down beveling toward the bottom, so
that their cross sections becomes wedge
like. Nails, of course, are not neces-
sary, and perfectly level surface may
be given to the flooring by planning after
the operation of laying down.. Some of
the advantages of this flooring, which
only requires an even bed on which TO
rest, are the following: Damp from be-
low and its consequence, rot, are pre-
vented; floors may be cleaned quickly
and with the least amount of water, in
surfing rapid drying; vermin have no
to accumulate in the joints;
and unhealthful exhalations from the
soil can not penetrate through. i
The MOTIVE PowER.-The various
matters which an animal eats consists
of pure food-stuffs and of useless con-
comitant bodies; just as coal consists of
pure fuel and of the useless mineral mat
ter known rs ash. When an animal
eats his dinner the process of digestion
and assimilation takes place, and has
the ultimate result of separating the
pure food-stuffs from the useless con
comitants. The latter bodies are re-
iected at once, but the foOd-stuffs are
taken up with his veins, incorporated
with the blood (Which consists of food
in different degrees of combustion) and
used for building up the various portions
If his body. Supposing the animal
we're a mere growing object like crys-
.al, with no work to perform and no
waste of material, the
process would stop here, and the crea-
ure would wax bigger and bigger from
lay to day, without any alteration in
place or redistribution of assimilated
natter. But the animal is essentially a
locomotive machine, and the purpose
or which he has taken in his food is
simply that he may use it up in produc-
ng motion. For a while he slows it
lway in his muscles, or lays it by for
uture use as fat; but its ultimate desti- |
nation i'm every instance is just as truly |
o be consumed for fuel as is the case |
With the coal i'm the steam en-
,ine. The food, however, only |
yives us one-half of the necessary |
for the liberation of dormant |
.nergy. Oxygen is needed TO give us
he other half. This oxygen we take in
whenever we breathe. Animals like
ishes or sea-snails obtain the necessary
upply from the water by means of gills:
or large quantities of oxygen are held
n solution by water, and the needs Of
uch comparatively sluggish creatures
re not very great. With them little
nergy goes 4 long way. Air-breath-
no animals like ourselves, on the other
,and, need relatively large quantities of
he energy-giving gas in order to keep
p the constant movements and high
of their bodies. Such erea-
ures accordingly take in the oxygen by
reat inhalation, and absorb it in their
1ngs, where it passes through the thin
membrane of the capillaries, or very
my blood vessels, and so mixes freely
nth the blood itself. Thus we have
BOD, supplied to the blood by the stom-
ch, the exact analogue of the coal in
he engine; and oxygen supplied to the
lood by the lungs, the exact ana
,gue of the draft in the engine. When
yer these two substances-the hydro
foods and the free oxygen
-reunite, they will necessarily give out
eat and set up active movements.-
|elgravia.