The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1888-09-29
SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL.
Brief Notes on Variety Of Interest
ing Topics.

| VIONkIlCl0h NlOAAA0 SsSA
he will soon be able to produce a
thunderstorm wherever and when.
ever it is desired.
Soft wood is now prepared with
oil. then subjected to heavy press
ure, which process densifies it and
gives it the properties of good lig-
numvita.
An Inch of rain" means gallon
of water spread over a surface of
nearly two square feet, or a fall of
about one hundred tons on an acre
of ground.
The ingenuity of manufacturers
has gone so far that not only is al
most everything now made out of
paper. but paper is now made out
Of almost everything.
| It is said that catterpillsrs and
other pests of trees and shrubbery
may be destroyed by boiling the
stems and leaves of tomato plants
! and pouring the liquid upon the
afflicted vegetables.
1t may be worth knowing that
water in which three or four onions
have been boiled, applied with a
gliding brush to the frames of pic
lures and chimney glasses will pre-
vent flies from lighting on them.
A Pittsburg man has invented a
nut machine which hammers, cuts
the iron to nut length, brings it to
the die box, where irregularities are
remedied, and makes the hole. No
waste is thus made except the core
Moths or any summer flying in
sects may be enticed to destruction
by a bright tin pan half filled with
kerosene in dark corner Of the
room. Attracted by the bright pan
the moth will meet his death in the
kerosine.
The pressure Of the atmosphere
upon every square foot of the earth
amounts 20 2,16O pounds. An or
dinary sized man, supposing his
surface to be fourteen square feet,
sustains the enormous pressure of
80, ,24O pounds.
A curious fact revealed by the
phonograph is that people generally
do not know their own voices. The
husband will recognize his wite's
voice in phonogranl, and the wife
will recognize the husbands, but
neither will recognize their own
speech.
One of the English regiments is
experimenting with machine
called center-cycle, which has four
small wheels foot in diameter and
one large one in the center. 1t is
said that the invention makes
climbing hill as easy for cycler
as rolling off log.
Make mixture of olive oil one
part and venegar two parts. Apply
it to the furniture with a canton
flannel cloth. Rub dry with another
cloth of the same material. A
housekeeper who uses this polish
on the finest vanished furniture
says it has no equal.
By a cana lift recently finished
at Argues. France, by Edwin Clark
the English engineer, five or six
locks are done away with. and the
boats, often with loads Of as much
as $50 tons, are lifted fifty feet at
single operation in a few minutes
and with no loss Of water.
It has been found that the essen
tial characteristics of the brain of
the New York chimpanzee, the late
Mr.. Crowley, were human. Its
weight was about third that Of a
human brain of ordinary develop
ment, and it indicated that the
chimpanzee knew more than some
idiots.
DR.. Donald C. Hood has collected
many facts relating to the use of
salicylic acid for rheumatism. Of
728 patients treated with salicylates
523 were relieved of their pains
within seven days, whereas of 612
patients by other methods only 14O
were relieved within the same time.
A man who has tried it says that
wooden posts treated as follows, at
cost of two cents each, will last
so long that the person adopting it
will not live to see his posts decay
Take boiled linseed oil and stir in
pulverized charcoal to the consis-
tency of paint, and put coat over
the timber.
James Muir Howey truthfully
says in the Nineteeth Century that
"there is no better preventative Of
nervous exhaustion than regular,
nnhurried, muscular exercise. II
we could moderate our hurry, les
sen our worry and increase our
open-air exercise, a large portion of
nervous diseases would be abol-
ished."
A curiously considerate inven-
ton has been produced by French
man in the shape of a n"fseless
clock, for use more especially In
sick rooms. In place of the usual
,I,,l,n, tho hands are SET in mo-