Richland beacon. [volume] (Rayville, La.) 1869-1890, 1888-05-12

SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL

Inc nearest star 10 us Is Alpha Cen
tauri distant about 20, 496, 900, 900 miles
A mirror can be made by coating on,
side of a piece of common glass with
quicksilver and tinfoil.
\ writer has proven the wafer under a
westerly equatorial current to be twelve
per cent. lighter than under an castcrly
equatorial current
Prof. Huxley has given the weight o.
air on square mile as about $50, 1919,
81, 200 pounds, containing not less than
3,0Sl, 500, l0j pounds of carbonic acid,
in which is 81 40 tons of carbon.
The largest cotton mill in the world is
said to be located at Kranholm, in Rus
sia. The establishment contains $40,
600 spindles and 1900 looms disposes of
a force Of $500 Eorsc power and rive
employment to 1000 hands.
A physician recommends that all the
wood used in the interior construction
of houses, and all the plain surfaces of
plaster, should be thoroughly oiled or
vanished, SO that the power Of absorb,
tion of foul air and gases should be de
stroyed.
A curious marine clock, patented by
! w. +. Hadlock, has attracted consider.
able attention in Chicago. BY the aid
of electricity it is made to assist pilots
and Others in navigating vessels Of all
classes where courses are run and where
it is necessary to be particular as to time
and distances.
If fish are kept in the water infested
with animalcules they eat the ''wiggle-
tails, " and grow large enough to serve
as food for man. Thus the poisonous in
gredient Of impure water becomes health
full food. Without mosquitoes most
marshy or swamy land would be danger
ously insalubrious."
Palladium, the new metal so extensively
used in watch manufacture, is absolutely
non -polarizable, and it is unaffected to
any noticeable extent by the presence of
a magnetic field. Besides this, it has the
incidental advantage of being rust proof.
The discovery is due to c. A. PaIlard, OF
Geneva, Switzerland.
Ernst Won Wechmar, of Berlin, claims
to have invented flying machine that
will make it perfectly possible for
humanity to compete with the birds.
The apparatus is very ugly, the wings
being about thirty feet by two, and the
body supported by air-cushions as well
as by the wings themselves.
The cable system for tramways has
just been introduced at Birmingham,
England. They speak Of it as marking
another important departure in the mode
of street travel, and prophesy its wide
introduction in other cities. A cable
road is now being constructed between
kensington and King William street, old
London.
In the manufacture of casks, carriages,
carts, packing cases, furniture, sheds,
telegraph poles, and many other things,
manufacturers of France AMI England
are displacing wood by steel and iron,
and with satisfactory results. Light
doors and hollow iron window frames
are in use, and, of course, last far longer
than wooden ones would.
Glass-blowing is an art nearly four
thousand ycars old, and perhaps much
older, yet there has never been any means
discovered of dispensing with the human
lungs rs the instruments of the blowing.
An English company is experimenting
with a mold and mechanical bellows.
which does satisfactory work at bottle
blowing, but this preiends to attempt
only coarse work.
A new company claims to possess the
secret of refining sugar by electricity.
The samples seen show sugar evidently
made by an entirely different process
than any known refinery uses. The en-
terprise thus far partakes of the mysteri-
Gus, in that its secret is known only to
the discOverer and his wife "a prudent
woman, 1t appears), and in that mum.
Der of confiding stockholders have parted
with sufficient money to equip an elec-
trical refinery on the most liberal scale.
Zinc, placed upon the fire in stove or
CRATE, is sad to have proved itself an
effective cxtinguisher of chimney fires.
To member OF the Boston Fire Depart
ment is reported to be due the credit of
successfully introducing this simple
scheme. When fire starts inside a
chimney, from whatever cause, a piece
of thin sheet zinc, about four inches
square, is merely put into the stove or
crate connecting with the chimney. The
zine fuses and libcrates acidulous fumes,
which, passing up the flue, arc said to
almost instantly put out whatever fire
there may be there.