The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-09-27
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

SCIENCE AND INDUS HFs
"A German chemist has found that
chloroform may be detected in the
lungs of animals four weeks after death.
An English physician has con-
vinced himself that diphtheria has IT'S
origin in common mold fungi, which
he thinks must acquire virulent prop
critics under special conditions.
Coal is now found in about thirty
different States of the Union and seven
Territories. In 1887 the little State OF
Rhode Island supplied 5000 tons out
of the total product of 123, 965, 225 tons.
A patented material said to have
all the properties of good lignum vitae
is prepared in Leipsic, by MI. Stock
hardt, from ordinary soft wood. The
wood is first impregnated with oil.
then subjected to great pressure, caus-
ing considerable increase in density.
Tests of various kinds of coal have
shown that only coke is sufficiently
good electric conductor to be used as
an earth connection for lightning rods.
Specimens of anthracite and bitunain-
GUS coal and charcoal were mostly
lacking in conductivity.
Wax is substance secreted by
the bees, and is analogous to the fat of
higher animals. TO produce single
pound of wax, the bees must consume
from fifteen to twenty pounds OF honey.
This expensive substance is used by
the thrifty little insects with the
greatest economy.
"A new method Of preserving the
colors of pressed flowers comes from
Germany. 1t consists in busting sali-
cylic acid upon the fresh petals, or
pressing the flowers between sheets of
blotting paper impregnated with So
luton of the acid in fourteen times It's
volume of alcohol. Red colors are
particularly well preserved.
-Priceite is borate of lime, and
was named twenty years ago by Profs.
Dana Silliman in honor of Prof.
Thomas Price of San Francisco. Borax
is made by boiling it with carbonate of
soda. A discovery of Priceite in large
Quantity is just reported from Curry
County, Oregon. Deposits of the same
mineral are found in Turkey and
shipped to London, where it sells as
Turkey borate."
"A new tanning agent has been OBJ
tanned by digesting coal dust with caus-
tic soda at boil, and neutralizing the
resulting liquor with hydrochrolic
acid. The inventor calls it pyrofus-
cine, and considers that while the new
process is more complicated than the
usual tanning processes, it is fifty per
cent. cheaper than the bark process,
and twenty to thirty per cent. cheaper
than the alum process.
One of the chief difficulties with
electric locomotives has been the trou-
BILE and danger of intrusting the deli
cate and easily disturbed mechanism of
such a motor to fresh and unskilled
hands. This, however, is believed to
have been overcome, in great meas
ure, by providing a switch board, en-
tirely enclosed, and in which q single
motion of the lever causes the motor
to move forward or backward, or remain
stationary, and regulates the speed at
which it shall run.
"A very good and sensitive ba-
rometer may be made by gluing to-.
gether strips of red cedar and seasoned
pine. A strip OF cedar about thirty
inches long, one and one-haf inches
wide and one-eighth of an inch thick,
Is cut with the grain, and to one side
of it must be glued strips OF pine OF
equal thickness, with thegrain rum
ming across that of the cedar. This
combination is set on end, and will.
according to the state of the weather,
be found to have bent over on one side
or the other. and this may be deter
mined by trial-Mannfactwrers' Co
zette. ~
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