The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1885-08-05
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

a recent invention for the use OF elec-
tricians is square wire, which is claimed
to be not only mechanically but electri-
cally better than round wire.
DR.. j. Miner Fothergill predicts a
great future for malt as 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
1913 genera. OF these forty-eight genera
and sixty species are peculiar to Florida.
A vegetable leather, said to be fully
equal to the animal product, is made in
Paris from gutta percha, sulphur, raw
cotton, zinc white, kolkothar, and
oxide of antimouy. The first two ingre-
dients are necessary, while the other
parts may be replaced by chemicals of
similar character. The proportions are
varied with the purposes.
Horsehairs immersed in water do not
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 para
site inhabiting beetles, grasshoppers, 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 horsehair 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 half million acres III 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 that
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 somo animal, and had been
carefully cut and fastened to neighbor-
ing natural teeth of two young girls by
means of small gold rings. The den
lists art was also applied to treating
natural teeth in various ways, but the
fact has hitherto escaped notice on ac-
count of the rarity of Etruscan skeletons.
The remarkable arrangement for
breathing which insects possess is thus
lucidly described: If we take any mod
erately large insect, say wasp or hor-
net, we can see, even with the naked eye,
that series OF small, spot like marks
runs along either side of the body.
These apparent spots, which are general
ly eighteen or twenty in number, are,
in fact, the apertures through which air
is admitted into the system, and are gen
orally formed in such a manner that no
eXtraneous matter can by any possibility
find entrance. Sometimes they are fur
nished with pair of horny lips, which
can be opened and closed at the will of
the insect; in other cases they are dense
ly fringed with stiff interlacing bristles,
forming filter, which allows dir, and
air alone, to pass. But the apparatus, of
whatever character 1t may be, is always
so wonderfully perfect in its action that
it has been found impossible to inject
the body of a dead insect with even so
subtle medium as spirits of wine, al
though the subject was first immersed in
the fluid and then placed beneath the re-
ceiver of an air pump.