Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1881-11-19
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

"A society for tho promotion of ex-
perimentation in navigation of the air
has been formed in Berlin. All plausi-
BILE ideas and inventions in that direc-
ton are to be encouraged, aided, and
thoroughly tested. A permanent sta
ton for giving aerial yoyagers good
start on their flying trips is to be pro-
vided. The main object of the associa-
ton will be the attainment of some
practical and trustworthy method of
steering balloons or other air ships, this
being the first point to be overcome,
and no progress being possible without
it.
From a privately issued report on
silk cultivation in the Chinese province
of Kwangtung, it appears that in the
Pakhoi district, on the southern sea-
board, wild silkworms are found, which
feed on the camphor tree, and their silk
is utilized in q singular manner. Ac-
cording to Nature, when the caterpillar
has attained its full size, and is about to
enter the papa state, it is cut open, and
the silk extracted in q form much re-
sembling catgut. This substance hav-
ing undergone process of hardening,
makes excellent fish-line, and is gener-
ally used for that purpose in the Pakhoi
district. lu
The chicken-hatching machine in
the Paris Electrical Exhibition deserves
celebration as well as other electrical
contrivances. 1t is an ordinary egg
Matching machine, in which the heat is
regulated by thermometer, the surface
of the mercury in which, as it rises or
falls, acts by electric wires and mag
net upon q ventilator, which opens as
soon as the heat rises to l04 degrees and
shuts when it begins to fall too low. 1t
has been observed that machine-hatched
chickens suffer from lonesomeness, and
do not eat so well as those who hear a
mothers constant voice; and so the in-
genious proprietor of this machine is
now constructing telephone which will
convey to his henless chicks, scattered
in different cages about meadow, the
clucking of n central hen.
The Herr system of telephony has
excited special attention among cleo
tricians in Europe, on account of the
surprising distances through which tele-
phonic communication has been main
tanned by it, and especially since the an
nouncement that conversation had
been carried on through the cable con-
Meeting Brest and Penzance-a thing
generally considered impossible, on ac-
count of the comparatively sluggish ac-
ton of the electric current in submerged
cables. The Herr system-by which
conversation, it is stated, has been car
ried on through an actual distance OF
over 600 miles over circuits having no
special adaptation to telephonic COM
munication- claims to have solved two
difficult problems, viz, that of increas-
ing the amplitude of electrical vibra-
tons, and of neutralizing currents for
eIgu TO the teiepnonc circuit.
Charles Brush, of Cleveland, o., is
declared to have perfected new inven-
ton for storing electricity. The design
consists of battery in the same sense
as in Plante's and Faure's, but the de-
tails are entirely different and do not
infringe upon the rights of either. Mr..
Brush uses for his storage reservoir
metal plates so arranged that they are
capable of receiving very large charge
of electricity and of holding it for an in
definite time. The storage reservoirs
vary in size as desired, may be trans
ported from place to place and used as
desired. Each citizen may then run his
own electric light as he pleases; the
plates can be put on street cars, con-
nected with the axles, and made to run
the cars without horses, and steam cars
may be ultimately run in the same way.
The practical character of the invention
is said to be settled, and it is simply a
matter of expense, but the details of the
methods are not made public.