The Central Nevadan. [volume] (Battle Mountain, Nev.) 1885-1907, 1888-02-09
SCIENTIFIC NOTES.

The speaking telephone has been
successfully used in ministering to
fever patients without running the risk
Of infection. A telephone is fixed at
the bed Of the patient aud within reach
So that the patient can talk TO friends
or visitors in other rooms Of the house,
or listen to book read
An officer of the United States En-.
gineer Corps, Major w Il. King, has
been recently trying some interests e
experiments in he way of making an
immense electro-magnet of two old
eniy-fre ton R,dman guns. con,
nected at the breech by IA number of
railroad rails, and their muzzles wound
wi h coils of insulated wire, forming
the poles of the magnet. The current
which was passed through these wires
was furnished by Weston twenty arc
light dynamo, and the magnetic power
developed was something surprising
Il required strain Of 10000 pounds
TO remove the "keeper' when the
current WAS on, and "A string of four
fifteen inch shells, each weighing over
800 pounds. and unattached except by
the power If the magnet, was held
Suspended from the mouth of one of
the guns.
For number of years the deficiency
in the production Of muberry-slk has
drawn til. attention of sericulturists to
the rearing of the wild silkworms of
India, China, Japan, America, and
other parts; and II great many reports
have been published on these wild
silk worms. SOME of which are already
bred Ia state OF domestieity or semi
domesticiiy. Many # these wild silk
worms produce silk Of great strength
end beauty, aud could all be profit
ably utilized. il bred in their native
lands, un large scale Specimen
coc, IONS, and carded and reelei silks of
about twenty different species, have
been sent to the Societe d dAeclimata-
ton, and they will lie exhibited in
the Paris International Exhibition Of
1899. together with the specimens of
the moths aud prepared larvae If the
various species.
Nature describes a new way of util-
izing dynamite. lately devised by Mr..
Bounetond, French military Ell
gineer, who uses the expansive force
to drive out, for brief period, the
water frum portions IT wet ground IN
which foundations are to be made
| The method is now IN practice IN the
construction uf fortified encente at
Lyons. A hole is first bored 10 feet
or II feet deep, aud about / inches
wide, in tue wet ground. Into this is
J DaSStu sliliig ~ tHItIIu2ts IT ulbh-
mite, which is then exploded. The
wat er is thus driven far out beyond
the sides Of the cavity, over a yard
wide which is produced, and it does
not reappear till after half an hour at
least. The workmen thus have time
to clear the cavity aud introduce
qaickly- setting concrete.
Nature provinces a very simple bar
ometer in the web of the spider. Be
fore the advent of wind or rain the
spider shprtens the iilaments from
which its web is suspended, elongaiing
them again only when there is pros
pect of fine, calm weather--the dura-
ton of which can he estimated by the
length Of the threads The spider
alter the form of its web once every
twenty-four hours, and it is said that
if the change be made in the evening,
Just before sunset, the night WI be
clear aud fine. Lang inactivity of the
spider is sign of continuing rain.