Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1889-08-02
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Pulvorizcd coal is being used SUGGEST
fully in tho mills ut Pittsburg. !.
Asphalt is used with success to make
sheet asphalt pavement, noiselcss and
justices. nei
The sun is near its minimum of nctiv-
lty. In 1888 NJ. Schmoll noted 100 days
without spots.
An electric light equivalent to 1,70O,i
900 candles will be used in lighting the
Paris Exposition.
A company with n capital of $500, 900
is about to test in Chicago the new
Swedish process Of electric tanning. !
The Prosser locomotive, just invented
at Chicago, is said to be noiseless, smokes
less, and wonderfully economical of fuel
and of power.
a typewriter, just patented, is wholly
OF metal, yet weighs but sixteen pounds,
does away with tho mixed ribbon and has
but nine springs in its construction.
a great difference between the practice
in this country and abroad is in the speed
of tho dynamos. Here very high speeds
are alscd; abroad low speeds arc aimed ut.
Tho invention of n "fog machinc,n by
which water is thrown in spray rs fine as
vapor, makes it possible to spin tho finest
cotton thread in mills established in tho
hottest, drycst parts of tho South.
1t is said that electric lights may bo
softcned without being dimmed by either
giving their globes thin coat of colo
dion, or by printing them over with
crystalizablo solution of somu salt of lead
or tin.
The Paris Academy of Science is just
now excited over II plant called colocasia.
This plant often exhibits trembling or
vibrating motion without any apparent
cause, and rs many as 100 or 100 vibrn-
tons have been observed in II single min
| ute.
A Russian navy officer has invented
method of scnrching tho sea or coast by
night which does not reveal the nosition
of the ship. A mortar fires boynnt shell
containing compound which ignites on
reaching the water and lights mp tho sur
rounding area.
a. French chemist hns spun ntratod
cclluloid into artificial silk more wonder
full and more beautiful than the we'll
known spun glass. 1t is colorcd Mt pleas
urc while in solution and after drying Is
unaffected with acids, nll1alics, hot or
cold water, alcohol or ether.
Paper doors arc said to be great i'm
provcmcnts over wooden ones. They nro
formed of two thick paper boards stamped
and nodded into panels and glazed to-
gcther with glue and potash and then
rolled through heavy rollers. After being
covered with waterproof coating, and
ono that is iircproof, they are painted,
Vanished md hung in the usual way.
A bombshcll has been thrown into the
scientific world through tho discovery of
Brcrcton Baker, Of Dulwich College,
about oxygen. That gas, which is known
MS the great agent of combustion, loses
its character when dried. 1t becomes
inert. Even charcoal will not burn in il
when heated to rctlness, nor phosphorus
become luminous. As yet there In no cx-
PLANTATION.
lightning in England and Wnlcs docs
less injury to tho south and west consts
than TO any pnrL of the country. The
chnnccs Of disaster increase with the dis
tancc from coast and high lands. Ac.
cording to IL report just presented to tho
Meteorological Society, $40 persons wcru
killed by lightning during the twenty.
nino years from 1852 to 1880, 442 males
and l0f females.
COMMITTING articles in which It's occur,
renee has been purely accidental" say,
MIR. A. w. Stokes, in the Chemical Nens,
'nrsenic Inns been found of Into years to
be present in some samples of muslins
cretonncs, Wallpapers, playing cards
the glaze Of some cnnmclcd stew-pans
the paper of fnncy boxes. and in som,
furs. These Inst nrc usually tho furs pre-.
pnrcd by amateurs. Ono has no wish tc
be an alarmist, or in any way to harnsi
trade, and il must freely DO acknowledged
that cases of any i'll results whatever
being traced to the use of these articlei
nrc very rare. None tho less, seeing how
unnecessary they aro, and how each yeaI
arsenic seems to be finding its way into
new quarters, il seems advisable to stop
its further progress.