The Osceola times., 1882-09-16
SCIENTIFIC SAYINGS.

ctiENlIElN shiiNus.
Last year Great Britain made nearly
100000 tons of puddled iron and i'm
ported 10000 tons besides.
Ii is proposed by some very scientific
persons to tap the interior ofthe earth in
search of natural heat for mechanical
purposes, and they propose to sink theii
shalt aud money in Japan.
1t is said that plaster of Paris of hard.
ness sufficient to be employed as mold
for metal may be made by using 10 pei
cent of alum in the water which is in
tended to be mixed up with the plaster
Mr.. III. p. Amersby asserts that large
amount of humus in a soil implies an
abundant previous amount of vegetation
and this in its turn implies soil of at
least moderate original fertility.
Electricity is now applied tc pile-driv-
ing. A water-wheel furnishes the power
which is transmitted by two dynamo
electric machines and connecting wires
to pile-drivers at a considerable distance.
The French Psychologists Perrier and
Poirier have found that, properly speak
ing, starfishes have no blood circulation
at all, as what has hitherto been sup
posed to be the heart of these animals is
simply a gland.
The longest three-quarteri inch rod ever
made was rolled at the Albany iron
works recently. II is 263 feet long, plump
from end TO end and free from flaws.
The next longest rod ever made was
forty feet shorter.
A cheap paint is made for brick wall
by simply mixing up good hydraulic ce-
ment in water. The natural tint is neu-
tral and pleasing, but can be readily
varied. This paint can not be washed of
by storms, nor peeled off by the sun.
A Paris company is trying the distri-
button of power for small workshops by
the service for 700 yards and operates
successfully. A powerful engine with air
pumps makes a vacuum of about three
quarters of an atmosphere, with which
motors are connected.
NM. Mace de Lepinay and Neati were
/ some time since on mountain excursion
and spent some five hours among the
snow. When they returned they found
all artificial light in the town to appear
distinctly green and this effect of tempo
rary daltonism induced by fatigue lasted
about three hours.
In the rivers rolling to the sea, saws the
American Contract journal, are millions
of horsepower daily running to waste
| We do not appreciate the brook and river
because they are SO near and have been
there SO long. Had they commenced
flowing but to-day we would have hast
ened to harness them.
A German paper says that cheese is
made in Thuringia and Saxony from the
| pulp of boiled potatoes mixed with sour
milk. These cheeses have their advan-
tage over other kinds, that they do not
engender worms and keep fresh for a
number of years, provided they are
placed in a dry situation and in we'll
| closed vessels.
Is iron to go out of fashion? A young
man at Pittsburg proposes to make nails
| from Bessemer steel to weigh but half as
much as the iron article, and yet be so
stiff that they can be driven into the
hardest wood and tough enough to clinch,
and has invented a machine which is
said to cut them three times as fast as the
old kind are made.
Compound armor plates, iron faced
with steel, will probably be used by the
French Government in building men-of-
war. Iron backing gives the required
tenacity and the steel resists penetration.
When steel alone is struck it fractures
and falls to pieces, and heavy shot easily
| th rn,,ph l. a.. IL.
of iron.
Tower City, d. T., is supplied with wa
/ ter from a remarkable artisan well.
/ When it had been sunk to a depth of $50
| feet, salt water was obtained: at $50 feet
gravelly stratum also yielding salt wa
| ter, was struck; after boring 604 feet fresh
water mixed with quicksand came up,
and now, from depth of 675 feet, there
is flow of pure, fresh water steadily in
creasing In quantity.
Six million pounds ofgraphite of plum
bago are annually imported into the
United States, and it is estimated that
the home production in New York
Pennsylvania, Canada and elsewhere
equals this amount. This valuable ma
terial is used principally in the manu-
facture of lead pencils, stove polish and
crucibles. It's market price varies ac-
cording to quality, from S25 to SIS per
ton.
Monkeys, says Alfred r. Wallace, are
usually divided into three kinds-apes,
monkeys and balloons; but these do not
include the American monkeys, which
are really more different from all of those
of the Old World than any of the latter
are from each other. Naturalists, there
fore, divide the whole monkey tribe into
two families, one having its habitat in the
Old World and the other in the New
| World.
An old gun, supposed to be Spanish
arm of the fifteenth century, has been
taken up out of the harbor at Santanda.
Some resemblance can be traced between
| it and an English gun kncwn to be of
| fifteenth century origin, in the rotunda
museum at Woolwich, very old gun
taken in the last Chinese war, and gun
which belonged to vessel of the Spanish
Armada. 1t is of wrought IRON is a
breech-loader about thirty-six calibers
long, and has no provision for recoil.
When alkalies are present in nitrate of
silver, Herr Stolba recommends the salt
to be dissolved in very small quantity
of water, and after the solution is filtered
drop by drop ofhydrohuosilicic acid is to
be added to it until turbid appearance
occurs The maintenance of n limnid