National Republican., 1883-07-10
SCIENTIFIC NOTES.


1900 miles more are being laid.
In Krupp's great gun manufactory, at Essen,
compressed carbonic acid is used for the man
ufacture of what ice and seltzor water may be
required by the workmen.
The conjunction of two heavenly bodies in
eclipses of the sun and their opposition in
eClipsos of the moon have no influence, NJ. y.
Denza states, ON the magnetic elements Of the
earth.
M. Victor Saint Paul has placed $1,000 at
the disposal of the Paris Academy of Medicine
as prize to any person, whatever may be his
vocation or nationality, who shall succeed in
discovering an infallible means of cure for
diphtheria.
The Journal dc Phdrmdcio says that muci-
lage composed as follows will unite wood,
porcelain or glass Eight and half ounces
OF gum arabic in strong solution, twenty
grains of solution of alumnia dissolved in
two-thirds of an ounce of water.
Well informed members of the New York
tea trade inform us that the yearly importa-
tons of teas into the Uuited States have been
from 75,000,000 to S0,0O0000 pounds, and that
of this amount twenty per cent. is of quail
ity unfit to drink, and injurious to the health
of consumers.
A new lightning appliance has been in
vented by M. de Khodinsky. He directs Jet
of coal gas and of oxygen on specially pre-
pared prismatic pencil of magnesia. The
coal gas and the oxygen arrive at the point of
combustion by two separate pipes inclosed in
the same tube.
A French inventor says he is to construct
a balloon which will be eliptical in form and
131 feet long. Its capacity will exceed
100000 cubic feet, giving lifting power, all
told, of 81 tons. The means of propulsion is
to be dynamo-electric machine aud sec
ondary battery.
The enormous gas main now being laid
through the Westminster district is the largest
in London. The diameter is four feet. Over
twenty-three miles, in four diverging lines,
have already been laid from the great gas
gun ten years ago.
1t is stated that some kinds of woods,
although of great durability in themselves,
act upon each other to their mutual destruc
tion. Experiments with cypress and walnut
and cypress and cedar prove that they will
rot each other when Joined together, but on
separation the decay will cease, and the tim
bers remain perfectly sound for a long period.
A new disease has recently appeared in the
Rappahannock oyster called, "the black
spot" small black spot, imperceptible to
a careless observer, appears upon the oyster,
and shortly afterward its death ensues. All
when bitten into, proves bitter and nauseous.
1t is considered the most serious of the afllic-
tions to which the mollusk is subject.
The first practical attempt to use compressed
air as an underground motor in coal mine
in this country has been successful at the
Old Eagle pits on tho Monongahela above
Pittsburg. 1t does tho work of score of
mules, requires the attention of only one man
who also operates the air-compressing ma
H.. ,..I l.....l l. IL
Sixty tons) up gradient of 100 feet to the
mile.
A composition has been invented by NM.
Dankworth and Landers of st. Petersburg,
which is reported to be tough, elastic, water
proof, insuating-in short, a nearly sufficient
substitute for india rubber. 1t is composed of
a mixture of wood and coal tar, linseed oil,
ozokerit, spermaceti, and sulphur, which are
thoroughly mixed and heated for long time
in large vessels by means of superheated
steam.
The usual ways of adding to the transmit
ting power Of belts are by applying to them
oil, rosin, or some adhesive substance, and by
tightening them on the pulleys. The use Of
oil, rosin, &c, results in " direct wasts of
power, for as it gets old it becomes gummy and
the belt sticks to the pulley, requiring more
considerable power than is generally sup
posed to separate it, and etfectually neutral
izes all the advantage sought to be gained by
its use. .......
The American, British, and Continental
Cable company, with capital Of S7,500000,
has recently been incorporated i'm London.
The intention of the newly organized COM
pany is to lay cables around the world, touch
ing the United States, Canada, Japan, Aus
tralia China, India, Great Britain, and SO on
and so forth. They will confine their present
intention, however, to the laying of two more
cables between the Unit cd States and Canada
and Great Britain.
A new branch of industry has lately sprung
up in Sweden-the manufacture of paper from
moss, not from the living plant but from the
bleached and blanched remains of MOSES that
lived centuries ago, and of which enormous
masses have accumulated in most parts of
Sweden. A manufactory of paper from this
material has begun operations near Joenkoep-
ing, and is said to be turning out paper in all
degrees of excellence, from tissue to sheets
three-quarters of an inch in thickness.
There arc only ffty-one actual and pro-
iected railways in Mexico. OF these four are
finished fifty are under construction and
seventeen are projected. One of these lines
belongs to the federal government, ten are
without subventions and have not yet been
undertaken, and forty have been granted
subventions varying from $1,000 to $1,000 to
tho kilometer. The Mexican railway to Vera
Cruz has an annual subsidy of S560,00 Four
of these railways arc operated by animal
power, the others by steam.
Mai. Witte, says the Journal of The Franklin
Institute, has provided the steam fire engines
of the city of Berlin with pipes for the dis
charge of compressed oarbOnic acid into the
steam chamber When the engine starts
from the station the boiler is heated on ar
irving at the fire the carbonic acid is at first
ON nj -a1 nc "A mr. 10
work together, and finally steam alone is
used BY this arrangement the eagine is
brought into action four or five minutes
sooner than would be otherwise possible.
The process of coating iron surfaces with
fine metallic zinc, mixed with oil and a drier
and applied with brush to preserve it from
rust, is recommended by Engineering. In
many cases one coat of this paint is sufficient,
and two coats are said to be secure protec-
tion against the atmosphere and sea water
The zinc coating gives the iron a steel gray
appearance, and does not interfere with sub
sequent painting. A good mixture, of which
only the necessary quantity ought to be pre-
pared, consists of eight parts by weight of
zinc, seventy-one of oil, and two Of sicca-
tive.
According to experiments made on the Han
over, Cologne aud Minden railway, fir sleep
ers injected with chloride of zinc required
renewal of 2l per cent. in eleven years, birch
sleepers injected with creosote n renewal of
46 per cent. at the end of twenty-five years,
and oak seepers injected with chloride of
zinc q renewal of about2l per cent. at the end
of seventeen years, while the same kind of
sleepers in their natural state required re-