The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-12-03
MECHANICAL.


IRON telegraph poles are supplanting
wooden ones throughout Switzerland.
In Germany they are also being intro
duced numerously.
BLACK birch wood is prizsd in Eu-
rope for fine cabinet work. 1t seems,
however, that there is strong preju-
dice against this wood among architects
in this country, although it is cheap,
beautiful, and pretty durable.
ENGLISH iron and steel makers are
accomplishing wonders. One company
has run out billet 100 feet straight
mill uses rolls weighing seventeen tons,
through which steel three inches thick
is rolled for decks.
BENsoN's watch. the size of six
pence, creates sensation at the Lon
don Inventories. There is another
the size of shilling, which shows the
time, the year, the month, the day of
the month and week, and the phase of
the moon. 1t arranges itself to suit the
exigencies of leap year. 1t repeats,
when required, the hours, the quarters
and minutes on a deep-toned gong. 1t
IS priced at $500.
A SOUTH CAROLINA genius claims to
have invented perfect system of car
coupling by electricity. Upon recent
trial a freight train was cut in four
pieces and again coupled up without
the aid of any person except the con-
ductor, who did the entire work from
the rear car. The invention, if sue
cessfully introduced, will save many
hundreds of lives ANNUALLY.
IT is rare, indeed, that q great fire
RACES in Baris. The dwellings, there
are SO substantially built, of brick.
stone, and mortar, that the flames have
little chance to get Roadway in them.
Many of the houses are ireproof.
Moreover, the residents are so sparing
of fire, never having any to warm
themselves by if they can get
along without it, that conaagration
hardly could find starting place.
In Sardinia, Sicily and the region
around Naples, large cork plantations
are being destroyed IN the improvident
haste OF their owners to realize profit
from the superior quality of tannin af-
forded by the bark, andsfrom the car
Donate of soda made out of the ashes Of
the wood. The French have planted
this valuable oak largely in Algiers,
where there is now over five hundred
acres in good condition. The number
of trees in Spain is also increasing 1t
continues to grow for $50 years and
reaches the height of some fifty feet
The wood is not valuable except for
--uei. 1t is thought that the tree would
thrive in California.
CoLoRED glass, writes specialist.
is of two kinds lone kind colored
throughout the whole substance aud
called pot metal, and the other colored
only on one side and generally called
coated glass. Red or ruby glass is al
most invariably coated glass. The
other colored glasses are generally pot
metal, though they are also made in
coated glass. The use of enamel colors
marks glass painting Ga work per-
fected by the aid of fire. to have been
executed not earlier than the middle of
the sixteenth century; but if the glass
has also been cut with the diamond the
production is of no earlier date than
the seventeenth century.
A LITTLE curiosity in engineering has
been constructed hy an ingenious clock
maker, ID. A. Buck. This is, in all
probability, the smallest steam engine
in the world, for it is almost micro
scopic in its dimensions. The whole
machine weighs only about a gram, or
fifteen grains, and is entirely covered
by an ordinary thimble. The stroke of
the piston is little over two MILNE
tiers, or one-twelfth inch, and its diam
eter is something less than a millimeter
and half. Nevertheless il is built up
of 40 distinct pieces, fastened together
by fifty-two screws, and three drops of
water suffice to fill the boiler and set
the toy mechanism in motion.
Nostrdnds.
In an article on windmills, the Sci
entifc american says: "An S.5 foot
wheel will raise 5000 gallons of water
daily distance of twenty-five feet. It's
first cost, including the pump and a
plain tower, is about $3.50. A 10-foot
wheel will raise about 5000 gallons of
water q day like distance, and costs
$3.50, including the apparatus above
mentioned. A 12-foot wheel will raise
10000 gallons of water day the above
distance, and costs, with the same APP
purtenances, $40. So up, from IA to
Is, IL to 20-feet diameter of wheel, un
til we reach 25-foot wheel, which
costs about 81 200, and will raise 100,-
900 gallons of water daily the specified
distance"
ONE hundred and fifty million tons
of matter in solution are annually
poured into the Gulf of Mexico by the
Mississippi At this rate one foot of
land over the whole basin would be re-
moved in 1000 years. Similar calcu-
lations applied to the st. Lawrence,
the La Plata and the Amazon reach
the result that 100 tons per square
mile is removed from the entire Ameri-
can continent every year. One cubic
mile of earth is deposited every year
in the Atlantic Ocean from America,
Africa. Europe. and Asia. And so the
continents waste away and form ma
terial for new ones in the geologic
ages.
To REMOVE rust-O Cover the metal
with sweet oil we'll rubbed in, and al
low it to stand for forty-eight hours /;
smear with oil, apply freely with a
feather or piece of cotton wool, after
rubbino tho etaa1 Than rub rnala L OIL