Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-04-26
POPULAR SCIENCE.

j. II. Morley of Holyoke has in
vented machine for sewing buttons
upon shoes. The buttons, being
thrown promiscuously into hop
per are shaken up and down, and drop
one a time through valve into a
trough which is grooved at the bot
tom to receive the eye Of the button.
The buttons then slide along the
trough and are received into holes in
small wheel revolving horizontally.
DIR. Benjamin Ward Richardson,
who is given to somewhat hasty and
wide congratulations on insufficiently
isolated, imperfectly Observed and very
few instances, has this to say about
cases inWhich persons have lived long
time on water: "The facts of these
examples, painful as they are, are not
without their use. They indicate
that, water being admitted into the
body, life may 60 on for periods far
beyond any that might be expected,
and they expose altogether the fallacy
about the value Of alcohol, when, with
large quantities Of water, it has been
administered as supposed life-sus-
tanning food" Unfortunately for DR..
Richardson's conclusion, at the end OF
the recent alleged instance of q forty
day fast in New York, although no
. alcohol was used while the devitaliz-
ing process was going on, the person
who is said to have totally abstained
from food other than water and car
bonic acid for so long time took not
a little but a great deal Of wine for his
stomach's sake and for his complete
restoration to health.
n. Marcel Deprez has just brought
out, says the Nature, a new electro
motor in which piston of soft iron
is attracted up and down i'll q hollow
cylindrical electromagnetic coil with
a motion like that Of an ordinary
steam-cDgine piston. The main prin-
ciple is not new, and it has been util-
zcd by other inventors, but, unlike
the other practical attempts to en-
body it, there is no reyersion or inter-
ruptiom Of the magnetism Of the soft
iron core or piston Of the Deprez ma
chine. This improvement has been
effected by dividing the solenoidal
coil into sections, like the separate
coils Of the ring armature of the
Gramme machine, the current being
thus transmitted first TO one part OF
the cylindrical coil and then to an
other. The commutatOr which dis
tributes the current successfully to the
various sections is worked by an &C.
centric Oh the shaft of the hy-wieel
il the usual way, but the lead" does
not require to be so much as a quarter
revolution.
Why the magnetic needle points to
the north is thus explained by Prof.
G.. T. Patterson, of the United States
coast survey: "Thc earth is itself q
magnet, and attracts the needle just as
ordinary magnets do, and it is found
to be affected by the action Of the sun
in manner not yet fully understood.
The magnetic poles of the earth are
not IN line with the geographical
poles, but make an angle with them
of nearly % degrees. At the present
time the northern magnetic pole Is
near the arctic circle, Oil the meridian
of Omaha, and, from the nature Of the
case, the pole may better be described
as region rather than fixed point.
The needle does not everywhere point
TO the true astronomical north, but
varies within certain limits. At San
francisco it points II degrees east Of
north, and at Calais, Me-, as much to
the west. AT the northern magnetic
pole balanced needle points with its
north end downward in a plumb lire
at San Francisco it dips about SO de-
grees, and at the southern magnetic
pole the south end points directly
down. The action Of the earth upon
q magnetic needle at its surface is of
about the same force rs Of hard steel
magnet forty inches long, strongly
magnetized, at a distance Of one foot
1t is very probable that a study OF
dynammo-eIectric machines, now SO
much used in electric Illumination:
will soon reveal some Eig-fcaching
truths regarding magnetism III geher-
a."