National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-02-26
SCIENTIFIC sClnT1LLATroAs-

A NEW Swedish industry Is the naanH-
fscture of fine sewing thread fGm wood
The use of gas asfuel enables the manu-
factrrers of steel and glass in Psburg to produce
those articles far more cheaply than formerly.
THE Siemens HaEskie electric railway
at Berlin, which expeetedts be open for traffic
at the commencement of this month, has been de
laTed by the severe weather.
DR.. E. Won HEYDeN states that salicylic
acid "ifappled in dilute solution to wooden yarns.
and mixed with sizes, will prevent rniidew, I'M
pleasant smells &c. Five grammes of the acid are
sufficient for q Liter of size
Two PYRAMIDS, the rooms and passages
of which are covered with Inscriptions which will
be Of high value to science, and which were built
by the kings of the sixth dynasty, have been dis
covered at Bsggarah, north OF Memphis.
STARCH been heated with glyeerine
up to 100 degrees C. has been made perfectly
soluble in water by Zulkeusky. His process has
been most successful with potato starch, less so
with wheat starch and still less with rice starch
A METEeRIC stone weighing 375 grammes,
triangular in shape and of crystalline appear
ance fell last month ut WeineF Neustadt and as it
fell to the earth, which it penetrated eonsid-
cradle distance, il gave forth avery brilliant light
ORDINARY letter-paper, if well heated
and rubbed briskIy with the hand or a brush,
acquires electric properties, and will adhere to
tables and walls, and when the hand is BROUGHT in
contact with it slight electric sparks are quite
visible if the experiment is made in the dark
SIR J. H. LEROY estimates that the
ground at Fort Norman, On the Mackenzie River,
British America is permanently frozen to the depth
of forty-ye feet, and at York Factory, on Hudson
Bay, but twenty-three feet; while at Yatutsk,
.IatiF
feet deep.
ANOTHER feat in telegraphy is recorded.
A message of sixty-ni words was lately sent
from Melbourne at p m. and reached London at
343 a. m. on the same day. Allowing for differ
cnce of time between the cities, the message was
but twenty-three minutes in transit Distance,
13,39S miles.
A SPAR rim twenty-eight feet in dame
ter, the largest crueible steel casting made,
was recently cast at Sheffield England. To cast it
two hundred and seventy pots, each holding
eighty pounds of molten steel, were used. Steel
wheels likely to superSede the cast iron wheels
now in general use in the Lancashire mills.
LARGE quantities of pottery are manu-
featured in Brazil from the hard, sIicous bark of
the caraipe tree. III the process the ashes of the
bark are powdered and mixed with the purest clay
that can be obtained from the beds of the rivers
this kind being preferred, it takes up a larger
quantity of the ash, and thus produces stronger
kind of ware.
PROFESSOR J. LAWRENCE SMITH, of Louis
vile, KY, describes a new series of spordumene
found in Alexandria County, n. C. The vein bear
ing it runs about due east and vest and dips about
an angle of seventy degrees. He expects that fur
ther and more exhaustive exploration will result
in the discovery of crystals having commercial
10 lie
name of hiddenite.
ACCORDING to Les HORdes plans have
been prepared for large crystal palace to be con-
strueted in the Park of st. Cloud, fer permanent
exhibition of objects relating to art and industry
with scientific experiments on a grand scale.
There will be representations also of the vegetable
and animal kingdom of the different geological
ages and views and models of ancient and modern
monuments and euriosities from all parts of the
world will be included.
PROFESSOR FLEMING JENKN has stated
that the following are the main conditions to be
fulfilled in putting house into good sanitary
order: l. The liquid refuse from the house must
have free passage to the town sewer. 2. The air
from the town sewer must not have free passage
into the house drain. 5. No air or gas from the
drainage channels of the house must enter the
house. L. No water or liquids must leak from those
channels into the ground under the house. 5. The
drinking water must be stored in such q manner
as to run no risk of contamination. 6. The air of
the dwelling rooms must be supplied without con-
tamination.
OCEAN soundings show that along the
entire coast of California depth of $500 fathoms
or more is reached within a distance of from
twenty to seventy miles westward from the shores
the greater part Of this sudden fall occurring in
the last ten to fifty miles. At one hundred miles
west of San Francisco the bottom is found to be
over $500 fathoms deep The bed of the ocean
continues of a uniform depth greater than 100
fathoms until the Sandwich Islands are reached
the greatest depth being 5000 fithoms at a distance
of about 400 miles east of Honolulu, which great
depth is maintained until within ninety miles of
that place.
A LECTURE by Dr. O. J. Lodge, delivered
at the London Institution shows in very intelIi-
gible way the relation between electricity and
light (see the Nature for January o. page 323).
The lecture was for the most part expOSitory, and
traced generally the steps by which Clerk Maxwell
arrived at the almost certain conclusion that light
is an electro magnetic disturbance with some of
the startling results which that statement implies
A prediction of what seems already theoretically
possible, and may be soon practically accom-
plished, was advanced by DR.. Lodge-the trans
mission of views and pictures by means of the
light could be transmitted just as sound is now
what revolution would be effected in Journalism
itself! This copy ofthe Times forinstance, could be
sent to New Orleans or San Francisco as whole
and at once as faithfully, too as it could be re-
produced by looking glasses, and there reissued
under the control of the New York publisher, with
the important local news of the respective cities
in ample time for the breakfast tables of the in
hebitants of these cities. A few great opinion
forming newspapers would only be read over the
length and breadth of this continent, and on the
same day. The illustration might be pushed
wider and in other directions but let that suffice
which is here and at present offered, although
those now living may laugh at its exaggeration,
and posterity, ourselves, indeed, wonder at its
moderation. The actual performances of the tele-
phone and of the photophone beggar the iInagiua
tons which gave us the Arabian Nights" not to
speak of other achievements of modern applied
science.