The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-07-03
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

A recent invention for the use Of cleo.
tricians is square wire. which Is Gained
to be not only mechanically but cleo ri
cally better than round wire.
Or. ]. Miner Foihcrgill predicts
great future for malt us a food. Among
other things. he commends lemonade
made with malt instead of cane sugar.
The forests of the United States com.
prise 412 species of trees belonging to
15S genera. OF these forty-eight genera
and sixty species are peculiar to Florida.
A vegetable leather, said to dc fully
equal to the animal product, is made in
Paris from gutta percha, sulphur, raw
cotton, zinc white, ko(kothar, and
oxide of anthony. The first two ingre.
dients are necessary, while the othei
parts may be replaced by chemicals OF
similar character. The proportions are
varied with the purposes.
Horsehairs immersed in water do moi
turn into snakes. The presence of what
is called the hair worm (gordius) in pools
of stagnant water by the roadside has
led to this belief. This worm is a para
site inhabiting beetles, grasshoppcrs, etc.
When full grown it leaves the insect and
deposits its eggs in long chains in moist
earth and water. When seen in the water
its appearance is exactly that of an ami
mated horschair six or eight inches long.
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 tanning af'
| forded by the bark, and from the wood.
The French have planted this valuable
oak largely in Algiers, where there is
now over a half million acres in good
condition. The number of trees in Spain
is also increasing. 1t continues to grow
for 100 years, and reaches the height Of
some fifty feet. The wood is not valua
BILE except for fuel. 1t is thought tha
the tree would thrive in California.
The dental processes familiar to us are
not so new as may be supposed. In the
museum of Corneto, on the coast of Italy
are two curious specimens Of artificial
teeth found in Etruscan tombs, probably
dating 400 or 500 years before our era
The teeth were evidently taken from the
mouth of some animal, and had beer
carefully cut and fastened to neighbOr
ing natural teeth of two young girls b!
means of small gold rings. The den
lists art was also applied to treating
natural teeth in various ways, but thu
fact has hitherto escaped notice on ac
count Of the rarity of Etruscan skeletons
The remarkable arrangement TO
breathing which insects possess IS thu
lucidly described: If we take any mod
crately large insect say wasp or hor-
net, we can sec, even with the naked eye
that series of small, spot like mark
runs along either side of the body
These apparent spots, which are general
" eighteen or twenty in number, are
in fact, the apertures through which al
is admitted into the system, and are gen
orally formed in such a manner that nc
extraneous matter can by any possbilit
find entrance. Sometimes they are fur
nished with pair of horny lips, whicl
can be opened and closed at the will o
the insect; in other cases they are dense
" fringed with stiff intcrlacing bristles
forming filter, which allows air, an
air alone, to pass, But the apparatus, @
. whatever character 1t may be, is Away
E so wonderfully perfect in its action tina
it has been found impossible to injec
the body of dead insect with even S
subtle medium as spirits of wine, a
though the subject was first immersed
, the fluid and then placed beneath the re
( ceiver of an air pump.