The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1880-03-05
SCIENCE AND PROGRESS.

9.345 per cent. in 1879.
WooL-GRowING is on the increase in
Oregon, and the quality of the fleece is
improving.
WHOEVER knows of any valuable use
for sawdust can make fortune at Min
neapolis, Miun. where the saw-mill men
do not know how to get rid of the $780,
600 cords of it that accumulates every
year.
A NEW style of barrel has been de-
vised which shall be capable of trans
formation after the produce is delivered,
so as to occupy a comparatively small
space, and be returned to the sender at
the rates ofsolid freight.
THE National Cotton Exchange esti-
mates the cotton crop Of 1879 at 5,O0,-
600 bales. The Agricultural Bureau
puts it at 4,G94,OOO bales, while the
general opinion at New Orleans allows
it to 90 up to 5,25O,OOo. The crop will
take into the Southern States an income
of $3.50, 100000.
HERR KRUPP is reported to have
taken out a patent for refining pig by
means of iron oxide in cupola lined
with basic bricks in graphite. He is
said to claim that he gets out the great
er part of the silicon, sulphur, and phos-
phorus without touc hing the carbon.
FROM almost every direction come
accounts of blast furnaces blowing in
and Others being got ready as rapidly as
possible, while statements of new ones
being erected are by no means rare. An
unprecedented quantity of iron will be
made in the United States this year. In
England furnaces are also being rapidly
blown in.
The largest passenger engine ever
made in this country was recently ship
ped from the Rogers Locomotive Works,
Paterson, n. j. 1t is for the Missouri
Pacific, and one of an order for six of
the same kind. 1t is built for heavy
loads and great speed, and has nineteen
inch cylinders and weighs thirty-six
tons. The Danforth Works also sent a
very heavy freight locomotive for the
Central Pacific, which is the seventh of
an order for twenty.
A NEW foot-warmer has been intro
duced for public comfort in cabs and
other vehicles in France. A sheet-iron
box is used with sliding drawer, over
which the air. which is admitted at one
end, may pass before 1t escapes at holes
in the other end. Into this drawer a
briquette of pure compressed carbon
raised to red heat is placed, and it
continues to burn there, without giving
forth any disagreeable odor, for about
fourteen hours.
Dr. H. Provost has found that
: rain removes much more matter from
an uncropped than from cropped soil.
He placed three inches of soil in two
! glazed earthenware pans seventeen
r inches in diameter. Four grammes of
white clover seed were sown in one OF
the pans and the other was left without
y any stimulus to vegetation. Both pans
:. were exposed from July 21 to October
4, and then the drainage water was col
lected and analysed with results which
n warranted the above conclusion.
s THE "damposcope" is the name
J, given by its inventor, Professor Forbes
J, of Anderson's College, Glasgow, to ar
J. instrument designed to detect the pres
: ence of fire damp in mines. The prin'
ciple embodied in it is that when
tuning-fork is sounded and brought near
J. tube of certain length, full of air
the tube will resound to the note pro
duced by the fork. Bythis machine thu
70 fire-damp in a mine can be estimated tt
h the amount of fve-tenths per cent. II
= has already been adopted in some o
- the mines in Lancashire, Scotland.
- Two German scientists, Heirs VII
chow and Coin, have recently studie
:. the probable causes of shortsightedness
- and are of the opinion that it is mainl.
" caused by the amount of daily work i'm
posed upon children and by insufficient
light. According as the time employe
=. by them in working was 2, 4, or 6 hour
" per day, the proportion of nearsighte'
children was IL, 90, and 40 per cen,
70 The light which they consider the mo:
favorable to the preservation OF sight
~ that which proceeds either from tw
le opposite points or from a central SIX!
III light. The latter is especially recon
y mended by these scientists for the illun
u nation of schools.
NC PATENT has recently been granite