The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1881-04-08
SCRAPS OF SCIENCE.

A GERMAx chemist has established the
valuable fact that atwood impregnated with
paraffine oils preserved for many years
from rot, even under circumstances most
favorable to decay.
a CORRESPONDENT of Nature gives the
following natural experiments with polar
lied light: Break off plate of ice and
hold it between the sky and pool of
water Its rehected image viii show the
beautiful colors due to polarized light
The incident rays should come from a
part of the sky about ninety degrees
from the sun, and reelection should take
place at the polarizing angle for water,
and the plate will probably require adj
iusting to bring out the maximum ef
fArrH0uGH Dr. j. GwYn Jeffreys has,.
sisffst< pcsiaa Il hetweon forty aud
fifty years, dredeed, rs an explorer, all
the seas of the British Isles besides a
considerable part of those on the coasts
of North America Greenland, Norway,
France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, and
Italy, he never found anything of value
except TO natralist, nor any human
bone, although many thousand human
beings must have persisted in those seas.
The gems, ''dead bones, etc, that was
Thought to form the floor of the ocean
appear to exist only in the imagination
of the poets.
THE artificial means by which drowsi-
ness may he induced have been investi-
gated lately IN Germany by Preyer. The
ordinary drowsiness of fatigue supposed
to be caused by the introduction into the
blood of lastic acid, compound pro-
ceeding from the distingeration of the
bodily Tissues of nerves and muscle. To
ascertain whether this view was correct.
Prcyer administered large quantities of
the acid TO animals, and found that it
woIld induce drowsiness and slumber
apparently identical with formal sleep,
and from which they awaken seemingly
much refreshed Not only lactate soda,
butsour milk and whey, fed to animals
which had been fasting, produced this
artificial sleep.
THE conditions prescribed by the Brit
ish Government III the manufacture of
gunpowder for the public service provide,
among other things, that the wood
dogwood-for the charcoal shall be of
the utmost cleanliness, any traces Of bark
adhering to 1t constituting an impurity
insuring its immediate condemnation,
md the wood must also be cut IN the
spring of the year. If the latter opera
tion Is performed when the sap is rising
the bark is easily removed, and the wood
is left perfectly clean; but wood cut later
In the year or in winter is perfectly as
good, only In this case the removal of the
bark Is a much more difficult matter; the
process of separation involves the boiling
of the wood, or, If this is impracticable,
the whole of the bark must be shaved
off with knife. The objection chiefly
characterizing both the boiled and
shaved, for gunpowder manufacture, that
they do not keep so well when stacked
as the spring-cuswood, going to decay
much faster.
= RUsr--Prof Barff, of London,
has discovered how TO treat iron vessels |
so rs to render them wholly safe from a
tendency to rust. so that boilers, if the
iron Of which they are made had. been
thus treated, would be safe against the
corrosion caused by the water, and cook
ing vessels would no longer need either
to be made of copper or furnished with
a tin lining, while spades and rails and
iron keels and plates, and the locomo-
tiyes on our lines, and all the countless
iron instruments of our modern life
would be safe against the most destruc-
tive of all the agencies which waste them
away. The process is to coat the iron
with the magnetic or black oxide of iron,
which is not only incapable of rust, but
harder than the iron itself, and which
adheres to iron with tenacity greater
than that with which the various strata
of the iron adhere together. Professor
Barff subjects the iron to superheate5
steam at a temperature Of from 500 to
1000 Fahrenheit, and if the exposure is
continued from five TO seven hours this
coating is fairly formed, and if the latter
temperature is secured it will adhere so
closely that not even a file will scrape it
Off Professor Barff left iron vessels
thus treated out on the lawn for six weeks
during the late rainy weather, and when
brought in they were as bright as before
their exposure. The coating does not
affect the surface, except by turning it
black.