News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-01-28
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

1t is said that the medical examiners
of the boys who were candidates for the
place of apprentices in the navy found
that nearly all suffered from heart
trouble or imperfect eyesight, caused by
smoking cigarettes.
In certain Austrian coal mines work is
suspended in dangerous places during a
fall of the barometer, experiments still
in progress having shown that the guam
tity and intensity of explosive gases
greatly increase as the atmospheric
pressure diminishes.
Water pipes of paper have been salts
factorily tested by DR.. ID. Lewis, pipe
1000 feet long and two incEes in diane
ter having been used for several years
without leaking or imparting taste to the
water. Wound into pipe form and
soaked in tar, the paper becomes nearly
as hard and strong as iron.
Picture frames are now made with
composition of paper pulp, glue, llnseed
oil, and whiting. The ingredients are
mixed and heated to the consistency of
thick cream. After the mixture is
cooled it is poured into suitable molds
where it is allowed to harden. The
frames, when removed from the molds,
are gilt or bronzed in the usual manner
Spiders have been found by DR.. q.
Keller, of Zurich, to be voracious de-
stroyers Of plant preylng insects, and ne.
contends that they play more eHectlVe
part in the preservation Of forests imam
all the insect eating birds together. Inc
value of the service rendered by SPIDERS
has been shown by observations on con-
iferous trees, few broad leayed trees,
and apple trees.
The use of compressed paper for car
wheels and other articles is rapidly ex~
tending. In. Breslau lately a factory
chimney fifty feet high has been made
of paper. The material is made In
blocks joined by salicious cement. Com
pressed in this way the paper is said to
become s;terr~zf Even row OF large
books compactly placed together are said
to be very difficult to destroy altogether
by fire.
Ozone, supposed to be a very active
form of oxygen, has been thought to
exert SO beneficial an influence that an
increase in the atmosphere's proportion
which rarely averages more than one
part in 700, 000-has been hailed as
token of particularly healthful climatic
state. Floweung plants-especialIy the
odorous kinds-and scented foliage has
been pronounced of hygienic value be-
cause they generate ozone. A rather sur
prising announcement, therefore, is that
of DR.. Daniel Draper's supposed discov-
cry that ozone produces pneumonia, but
it seems quite probable that the gas
which so powerfully destroys organic i'm
purities may be proven by further re-
search to act as an irritant of the lungs.
The investigation made by the Prus-
sian Firedamp Commissian to arcertain
the causes of explosions in mines show
among other things that many explosions
attributed to fredamp, or outbursts of
gas, are really due to the fine coal dust
in mines. 1t appears that all kinds of
dust are capable of exploding violently
when ignited by such means as the
electric spark, and tnat the explosion
extends much further with coal dust
than with tiredamp. The experiments
relative to this inflammability of coal
dust are stated to have been devised as
nearly rs possible in accordance with
the conditions prevailing in practice, and
were carried on at the Koenig mines,
Sarrebruc,I. A gallery,
or drift, driven fro m the surface, was
chosen as the place for treating the dust.
means being also provided for keeping
the particles in a state of violent agita-
ton by currents of air. To provoke
ignition of the dust, the electric spark
was made use of, means that is far
from furnishing that volume of flame
found by the French experimenters to
be necessary to explode coal dust. The
tests were many times repeated, more
than two hundred times in ali, explo-
sions occurring in every case.