The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1888-08-30
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Tho direct action Of steam at 2f2
degrees is sufficient to destroy all germs.
Chloroform may be detected in the
lungs of animals four weeks after death.
According to the naturalists. wasps
remember the locality of their nests just
ninety-six hours.
Waste silk has been shown to be the
most effective non-conductive covering
for steam pipes The price is high, but
the demand is very great.
There has been invented for the use Of
the trumpeters in the French army an
instrument which at will can be turned
so as to throw the sounds backward.
A human subject without collar bones
has been met with in a St Louis dis
secting-room. This structure Is that of
most Of the vertcbrates, such as lions,
bears, etc.
Without taking into account the small
variations due to refraction, etc., the
days and nights are always OF equal
length at ali points on the equator. with
out regard to the position ofthc ccliptic.
The atmosphere on the English Channel
was recently rarehed to such a degree
that oh ects between thirty and forty
miles from Dover and Folkestone could
clearly be distinguished with the naked
eye.
Tests Of various kinds OF coal have
shown that only coke is sufficiently
good electric conductor to be used as
an earth collection for Lightning rods.
Specimens of anthracite and bituminous
coal and charcoal were mostly lacking
in conductivity.
A natural soap well has been discovered
near Buffalo Gap, Dakota. The soap is
skinned from II boiling spring and
hardens by exposure to the air. 1t is a
mixture of boraX, alkali and oil. Tho
quality is excellent, and the supply is
believed to be ineXhaustible.
A remarkable strip of the new South
American railroad, from Bucnos Ayres to
the Andes, is probably tn longest tan.
gent in the world, extending 2ll miles
without curve 1t is further notable
as having no bridge in the entire dis.
tance and no cut or fill exceeding about
a yard in depth or height.
A new method of weather prediction
has been discovered by French ply.
sicist. He has observed that the scintl.
latlons of stars increase before many
storms, indicating disturbance of the
upper atmosphere hours fore the
meteorological instruments show any
change. The fiercer the storm, the
more is the strength of the scintillations
increased.
Eighteen years ago, when the air.
brake was, it required eighteen seconds
to apply it to.a train 2O00 feet long.
-Four years later the time was reduced
to four seconds. Recent experiments
with the air-brake on freight trains
show that it can be applied to every car
in atrain of that length running at the
rate Of forty miles an hour, and that
this train can be stopped within SOC
feet, or one.fourth its own length, and
ell this without any serious jostling
When the first electric telegraph wa,
established the speed of transmission
was from four to five words a minute
with the five needle instruments in ls4g
the average rate for newspaper messages
was seventeen words a minute; the pres.
ent pace Of the electric telegraph be.
tween London and Dublin, where the
Wheatstone instrument is employed,
reaches 463 words; and thus what was
regarded as miraculous sixty years ago
has multiplied hundred fold in half
century.