The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-02-27
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

A Georgia inventor has invented a
fireproof cotton bagging, the use of
which will very much reduce the insur-
ancc rates on cotton. 1t is called "anti-
phlogan, and is said to be cheaper than
the jute or campaigning now used.
TO test the purity of water there has
been found no better or simpler way than
to fill a clean pint bottle hrGc-Iourths
full of the water to be tested, and dis
solve in the water half q teaspoon
full of the purcst sugar-loaf or granu-
lated will answcr-corI the bottle, and
place it in a warm place for two days. If
in twenty-four to forty eight hours the
water becomes cloudy or milky it is un-
fit for domestic use.
1t has been proved beyond all doubt
that waters which circulate or stand in
lca1cn pipes or vessels not only take up
particles of lead through mechanical
action due to friction, but attacks the
metal because of the affinity of several of
their constituents, the result being gen.
orally lead carbonate. Minute quantities
Of lead introduced into the system must
rank among the factors of anemia and
defective nutrition in large towns.
The electric light is being used to light
bakers ovens. a great difficulty has al
ways existed among bakers to get light
into their dark ovens, so that the progress
of baking might be observed. Two in
candescent lamps, driven by a Victoria
Brush machine, are placed inside an oven
where the temperature ranges from 400
to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. The oven
door contains a sheet of plate glass,
through which the whole Of the oven is
distinctly visible. The baker now never
need burn his bread or pastry.
Considering its extent, America is
better supplied by the clouds than Europe
and Africa. In the tropics of the old
world the annual rainfall is about seventy
seven inches, while in tropical South
America it is t55 inches. In the eastern
United States it is forty to fifty inches !;
but west of the one hundredth meridian
to Sierra Nevada it is mostly twclvcto six
teen inches. The annual average of Great
Britain is thirty Five inches that of France
twentyto twenty one inches; but about
the Alps it is mostly thirty-tive to fifty
inches. Farther from the coast, in
central Germany and Russia, it is only
fifteen to twenty inches. The mOistest
climate known is in India, at Chcrrapon-
gee, where over a small area the yearly
fall of rain is more than 610 inches, or
about fiftyone feet.
The process of swallowing food in
scrpents is painfully slow and somewhat
peculiar. For how is an animal without
limbs or molars to swallow its prey,
which is often much larger than its own
body} Thus the boa-constrictor seizes
the head of its victim with it's sharp, re-
curving teeth, and brushes the body with
its overlapping coils, then slightly un
coiling and covering the carcass with q
Shiny mucus, it thrusts the head into its
mouth by main force, the mouth stretch
ing marvelo sly, the skull being loosely
put together One jaw is then untiXed
and the teeth withdrawn, by being
pushed forward, when they are agail
fastened farther back on the animal The
other jaw is then protruded, and then re
fastened, and thus, by successive move
ments, the prey is slowly and SPIRAL!
drawn into the gullet.