The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1883-08-11
SCIENCE AND INVENTION.

In Krupp's great gun mandatory, at
Essen, compressed car bonic acid is used
for the manufacture of what ice and self
ger water may be required by the work
men.
It has been observed that "right.hand-
edness" extends far down in the scale of
creation. Parrots take hold of their
food in their right foot by preference,
and insects like wasps, beetles and spi.
ders. use the right anterior foot most
frequently.
For period of forty. four years none
of the men employed in a German ultra
marine works had been observed to suf-
fer from consumption. The immunity
of the employees is attributed to the con-
stant production of sulphurous acid by
the burning of sulphur in the course of
the making of the ultramarine.
A composition has been invented by
M. M. Dankworth and Landers, of st.
Petersburg, which is reported to be
tough, elastic, water proof, insulating
in short, q nearly sufficient substitute for
India rubber. It is composed of mix
ture of wood and coal tar, inseed oil,
ozokerit, spermaceti and sulphur. which
are thoroughly mixed and heated for a
long time in large vessels by means of
superheated steam.
In recent German scientific work, DR..
Otto Mohinke advances new argument
in favor of Darwinism. Small .pox is q
disease supposed to be confined to human
beings, but DR.. Mohinke had a gibbon
(hylobates caucolor) in Borneo which
was infected through contact with his
clothes on returning from hospital, and
passed through all the stages of the dis
ease, escaping, however, with only q
slight injury to one of his eyes.
Major White, says the Journal of the
Franklin Institute. has provided the
steam fire engines of the city of Berlin
with pipes for the discharge of COM
pressed carbonic acid into the steam
chamber. When the engine starts from
the station the boiler is heated; on arriv.
ing at the fire the carbonic acid is at first
employed as o motor, then the gas and
steam work together, aud finally steam
alone is used. By this arrangement the
engine is brought into action four or five
minutes sooner than would be otherwise
possible.
The following analysis by Schwartz
tends to show that American barley is
richer in starch, and therefore in ex-
tract, than European barley. Moisture
| 1871, starch, 65.05, albuminoids II Al,
ash 1928, and phosphoric acid 1858. The
percentages of starch, albuminoids, ash
and phosphoric acid are calculated on
the perfectly dry barley. The following
comparative analysis of American and
European barleys by the same authority
have been given by contemporary
Moisture-American 1871, European
1911. Starch-American 66.05, Europ-
can GAIA. Observation-Disclosures
II Al, European 11.21. Ash-American
1928, European nil. Phosphoric acid
American .953, European 1895.
A futter has been caused in scientific
circles by the announcement in the
Union Medicale of June I'd OF the discov-
cry, on piercing new gallery in a coal
mine at Bully Grenay (Pas-de- Calaisl of
a series of very remarkable caverns. In
the first were the intact fossil bodies of
a man, two women and three children.
Beside them were petrified pieces Oi
wooden utensils and remains of man.
mails and fish, as we'll as stone weapons.
A second subterranean cavern revealed
eleven bodies of gigantic size, the fossils
of several animals, and a great number
of various objects, including precious
stones. Into third aud larger chamber
the miners could not enter on account OF
the carbonic acid it contained. If al
this turns out to be as true as it appears
to be the existence of prehistoric men il
stern fact even to the most skeptical