The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-05-19
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.
Paper is now used in the construc.
ton of chimneys. 1t is made into blocks,
which are joined with cement
One of the new industries in Maine
which are springing up over the State
is the extraction of oil from cedar
boughs.
"A German paper says that a COM
pany has been formed to manufacture
watches to be run by electricity instead
of spring.
Vermont derives large income
from her sugar naples. One hundred
trees will on an average yield twenty
five gallons of syrup.
"A new attachment to the micro
scope has been devised, the object of
which is to observe the melting points
of minerals while under the process of
examination.
Chinese firms doing business in
New York City during the lastyear paid
the government $4,000 in customs
duties The celestial merchants COM
plain because there is no one in the
custom house who can talk with them
properly either in pigeon English or
Chinese.
Chloride of zinc, so much used in
soldering iron, has the drawback of be-
ing unwholesome when employed for
soldering the iron tins for canning
fruit vegetables. etc. A soldering
mixture, free from such defects is now
made by mixing one pound of Tactic
acid with one pound of glycerine and
eight pounds of water.
An Austrian has patented a process
for getting thread that can be spun
and bleached from wood, which is cut
in long lengths and boiled till it will
cleave apart in fibrous punches by
shaking in water. 1t is then shredded
by hand or by machinery, and spun like
hemp. This gives very fine thread,
and less boiling gives a coarser one.
The remarkable finish of American
papers places them ahead of any made
elsewhere in the world. The excellent
properties of che paper are impaired by
the addition of a mineral called agalith.
1t is q silicate of magnesia, and IS
fibrous, resembling in this respect
asbestos. Large amounts of it are
found in the United States. This sub
stance does not seem to be found as yet
in other countries.
1t is estimated that the amount of
petroleum produced in Pennsylvania
since brakes well was drilled in 1859
to the year 1887 was $50, 100000 barrels
of forty-two gallons each. This amount
| of oil would be sufficient to make a
| good-sized river or lake if collected in
one body. 1t would make q stream ten
feet deep. 100 feet wide and about $50
miles long, or lake or rectangular
pond about three miles long, two miles
wide and ten feet deep. Still the supply
| is not exhausted.
BY means of high box attached to
the wall of house, the outside of the
box being made of slate or corrugated
iron to absorb the heat, and so con-
nected with openings in the wall as to
act as q flue, the heat of the sun can be
called in to assist in warming a room.
A heater forty-two feet long and six
feet wide was formerly attached to the
Athennum in Boston, the work done
by it being estimated to be equal to that
obtained from the consumption of fifty
pounds of coal a day.
"A paper that resists the action of
both fire and water has, it is said, been
recently invented in Germany by a
Herr Ladewigg. The manufacture is
accomplished by mixing twenty-five
parts of asbestos fiber with from twenty
five to thirty parts of aluminium sui
phate and the mixture is moistened
with chloride of zinc and thoroughly
washed in water Il is then treated
with solution of one part of resin soap
in eight to ten parts OF solution of
pure aluminium sulphate, after which it
is manufactured into paper like ordi-
nary pulp.