The Opelousas courier., 1889-10-05
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

A new marble saw cuts two and a half
inches a minute.
Lime has of late been used to draw
frost out of the ground.
Grooming brushes for horses are run
in Chicago by electric motors.
The practical results of the application
of electricity to ~tempering steel are said
to be very satisfactory.
Dermatologists declare that badness is
not a disease of the hair but of the skin,
and that BARRIERS should not meddle with
its cure.
1t is believed to be quite possible with
a Wimshurst machine to provide actual
thunder clouds on a miniature scale in a
large building.
A German chemist, R. Lupke, has
proven that plants may develop when no
potash is present, but their condition
falls below the normal.
Photographs of the fight and explo-
sion of dynamite cartridges are among
the achievements of the instantaneous
method of photography.
Professor Moebius has proved, as lately
stated to the Berlin Physiological Society,
that the anatomical arrangements of the
flying fsh's fins and muscles make flight
impossible.
Hydrophobia was abolished in one
year in Scandinavia by the simple pro-
cess of muzzling the dogs, although
fbaro hoe hoo, 1S0 ooco, - 4bo r,oooJ
ing six months.
Professor Hazen, stationed at the
Mount Washington signal station, has
made a new and careful computation of
the height of the mountain, and finds that
it has a height of $500 feet above mean
low tide. This is seven feet higher than
previous measurements made it.
Discovery has been made that a farm
directly west of Topeka, Kan, contains
a fine bed of terra Gotta clay. Beds in
New Jersey and Ohio have prior to this
time furnished all the terra Gotta works
with clay. This industry, when properly
developed, will be worth to the city
about $500, 900 annually.
Some interesting electrical obserya-
tons have already been made at the sum-
NIT of the Eiffel Tower. It has been
found that the tower is a marvellous
lightning conductor, and that were the
lightning to strike it, not only would
there be no damage done, but the visitors
themselves would not notice the shock.
Anew mineral of exceptional chemical
interest has been discovered, says Nature,
by MI. Sperry, chemist to the Canadian
Copper Company, of Sudbury, Ontario,
Canada. It is an arsenide of platinum,
and is the first mineral yet found con-
tanning platinum as an important con-
%stituent, other than the natural alloys
with various metals of the platinum
group.
An English journal is authority for
the. following: short-sightedness des-
cends from parent to chis1Sin diagonal
succession-that is, sons inherit it most
frequently from their mothers and
daughters from their fathers. The aver
age of such cross-transmissions is about
per cent. direct transmissions from
father to son, and vice versa, being much
less frequent.
A new method of utilizing the power
of running streams has been devised by
N. Tarn, a Russian engineer. His APP
paratus consists of an endless cable car
rying a series of canvas n which open
and shut like an umbrella. The cable
passes over a double drum on board Of a
ponton, and at the other end, over a pull
ley suspended from a buoy. On the lower
part of the rope the are opened and
forced forward by the current of water,
thus setting in motion a shaft or drum.