The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1883-08-09
Scientific Notes.

cat that has become quite blind from cat.
aract, but is still able to do housing
and to make journeys from and to home.
Beet-root sugar is now admitted to be
quite distinct from cane sugar. It's
sweetening power is thirty per cent.
lower at least, but its polarzing power
| is greater.
Crude honey has been found to keep
far better than the clarified kind. but the
! addition of about one per cent of OK
alic acid will do no harm to the honey,
but will improve it.
Pasteur has studied the pneum enter
ties of pigs. which has carried off last
year in the valley Of the Rhone alone
more than 30,0 600 swine. He traces the
affection to microbia.
a Polish newspaper saws that Il rich
land proprietor who is living III Plotzle
has applied to the government for per
mission to build railroad between that
place and the fortress of Novogeur9isvsk
"a capital name for terminus.
A writer in tie Cosmos Les Mondes
proposes to dissolve zinc IN dydrOchloric
acid, to sell the hydrogen gas for filling
balloons, AMI to utilize The zinc chloride
as disiufectant. The article hardly APP
pears to be serious one.
This is some of the uses 70 which the
Russians put their soldiers: Tue Jabinsk
Paisi railroad has been constructed 10y
one corps. II is about 40 miles long.
has nine bridges. cost the goyernmen
little more than sl5, 900 mile. and was
finished in five months. BY the MIDDLE
of this month The Trans Caspini
Krasnovodsk will be finished rs far As
Arvat.
To coat iron with zinc very fine coat
ing is maize of the powder OF the latter
metal, which is mixed with oil and sicca-
tive and applied to the iron by means of
an ordinary brush. In many cases one
coat will do Both the effects of air and
water are kept away by two coats. The
zinc coating gives the iron steely APP
pearance, which does not interfere with
subsequent painting.
An indorsing ink which does not dry
quickly on the pad and is quickly taken
by the paper is thus made: Auiline color
in solid form, 16 parts; boiling distilled
water, 80 parts; glycerine parts, aud
syrup parts. The color is dissolved in
hot water and the other ingredients are
This indorsing ink is said TO acquire its
good quality from the addition OF the
syrup.
A telegraph line has lately been estab-
lished between Shanghai and Tlentsin.
1t is now to be extended to Pekin, as the
prejudice has been removed. kilograms
are to be forwarded either in French or
in English. Yet there is a strict scru
tiny to be kept by two mandarins. The
duty of these officials will be to see to 1t
that no messages will pass over the wires
by which the state would be endan-
gered.
There is no more powerful apparatus
for the conveyance of disease than
book" says the London Lancet. A list
of the maladies most easily conveyed by
means of books is given rs follows;
Measles. scarlet fever. diphtheria, sore
throat, whooping cough, bronchitis and
perhaps phthisis." The germs of disease
may lie for weeks, months or perhaps
years, between the pages of bound
book, to be dislodged at some Dnpro-
pltious moment when the volume
chances to be handled by susceptible
person"
A new explosive has been invented by
NJ. Turpin, q Partisan chemist. 1t l.
said to be very powerful, aud unlike
nitro .glycerine, dynamite and gun cot
| ton it has the highly important property
OF not being affected by conclusion. 1t
| is made by the combination of two
| LIQUIDS, which can be transported like
ordinary chemicals, and need only be
mixed when the explosive is about to be
used 1t can be employed in its liquid
form or when absorbed by silicious
earth. Frost does not affect it. At
| Cherbourg experiments have been made
with this substance upon slaty rocks
containing quartz and also upon old
cement work, and the report OF the en-
gireers praises it very much
The ebonized wood which has now
come into such extensive use for decora-
tive purposes, is pronounced fully equal
and in some respects preferable to the
genuine ebony. One of the most salts
factory methods of producing a superior
article of ebonize6 wood is to take fine
grained growth of apple. pear or walnut
and theu proceed as follows: Boil in a
glazed vessel with water four ounces OF
gall nuts, one ounce of logwood chips,
half an ounce of vitriol aud half an
ounce of crystalized verdigris; this to
be filtered while warm and the wood
brushed number of times with the hot
4 ..y..s:.. Tb,a c.a,pal blacl tho wood