Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-23
POPULAR SCIENCE.
PHILADELPHIA Record.

FhlladeipLla hecoTu
The cheapening OF oxygen by the newly
discovered processes appears to have put
into the hands of metal-workers a new
power. Thus operations with the COM
pressed oxygen and coal gas show that
with one-half inch gas supply a joint can
be braZed in a two inch wrought iron
pipe in about one minute, the heat being
very short aud the redness not extending
over one inch on each side OF the joint.
Furthermore, success to a remarkable
degree has attended the operation of
welding on this principle, Il process which
is not possible with ordinary coal gas and
tar, owing to the formation of magnetic
oxide on the surfaces, good weld being
obtained ON an iron wire one-eighth inch
IN diameter, with very small blow
pipe, having an air jet about one-thirty-
second of an inch diameter. 1t is be-
Neved that the welding of boiler-plates
oan be done perfectly, and with far less
trouble even than that required to
braze an ordinary joint. The great ad-
5antage claimed for this is the absence
Of any necessity for handling the boilers,
they being by this means welded with an
ordinary large blow-pipe in position and
with about one-tenth the labor usually
NiuIANO hC Npci VI lHt OAN gen 10 Dul
small, and it would appear from the re-
suits attained in brazing that the con-
sumption of gas must prove considerably
less than One-fourth that necessary with
an air blast, irrespective of the fact that
Welding is possible with an oxygen blast,
whereas it is not possible if air is used.
The surface of iron heated to welding
heat by this means comes out singUlarly
clean and free from scale, and small
bottle of compressed oxygen, with
blow-pipe and moderate gas supply,
would, it is claimed, make the repairs of
machinery, boilers and other unwieldy
apparatus simple matter.
SCIENCE OF DIGESTION.
The fallacy of "pIain liying'' is shown
by good authority, which proves that the
stomach never performs its duty so effect
ually as when called 10 act upon a variety
OF food, provided, OF course. that the
food is well cooked. The popular opin-
ion now IS that Il dinner consisting OF
three or four varieties of solid food is
more easily digcsted Uhan the meal which
Is confined to one sort only. The old
fashioned notion that a single joint and a
simply made pudding is pronounced to be
4 fruitful source OF indigestion. On this
subject Or. George Il. Taylor says in The
Sanitary Era: "Ready- digested and
easily digested foods are the abominatiOn
Of dietetics; they prevent normal incitatIon
Of the digestive organs, necessary for
normal secretiOns; they encourage a false
notion that nutrition can be assured
without reference to expenditure or TO
providing any use for nutliJive material,
and thus are liable to cause unnatural,
irregular, unmanageabIe increase of the
unstable ingredients of the organism,
which react injuriousiy upon the digestive
secretion, especially those OF the liver.
The prevalent recourse to these pTesuma-
bly, enforced methods of nutrition are, in
short, violent and abnormal reaction
against the former prevalent reign of
physic, depietents, and so-called altera-
tives. These Old methods actually pro-
vide modes of GisDosing of unused nutri-
tive supplies, although they be morbid
NODES