The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-03-06
POPULAR SCIENCE.

| fVI OLAh 0SxCNCAs
Street cars in Chicago are to be heated
by gasoline.
Oxygen is 8 substance which exists
only in gaseous or aeriform state.
Carbon is the name given by chemists
| TO the substance of wood charcoal in its
purest form.
Several cases of blindness are reported
among observers of the sun durlag the
eclipse in California.
In the St. Louis Railroad the power is
derived from q central station and dis
tributed on overhead wires.
The projected underground electrical
railway in ondon is opposed on the
ground of being dangerous.
The epidemic of typhoid fever in
! Brooklyn, in 1885, was traced to faulty
connections between houses and sewers.
The non-rusting property of alumin-
tum bronze had led the Austrian Govern
ment to experiment with it as material
for gun barrels.
During the past four years London has
tad Society of Amateur Geologists,
which studies geology on Saturday after
noon excursions.
A Belgian has invented yacht the
propeller of which is operated by water
power. The economy in fuel ought to be
something enormous.
Miss Hattie Proctor. of Defiance,
Penn, is SAID to have devised method
of producing gas from crude oil at a cost
Of only five cents per 1910 feet.
Hydrogen is only known to US in a
state of gas and when perfectly pure
agrees with oxygen and common air IN
being without taste, color or smell.
The New York Experimental Station
says that there is 1929 per cent. less di-
gestible albuminoids in hay that has been
kept owe. one year as compared with
new hay.
An examination of 200 houses in Chi
cago, in which dipntheria existed,
showed that but four of the whole mum.
ber were perfect in their sanitary ar
rangements.
Late researches tend to show that per-
sons short of food in mid-ocean might
support life indefinitely if provided with
appliances for capturing the small
marine fauna which is very abundant in
tho Atlantic, and probably in all tenn
perate and warm marine waters.
The new pencils introduced by Faber
for writing upon glass, porcelain and
metals in red, white and blue are made
by melting together four parts of sper-
macetic, three parts tallow and two parts
wax, this mixture being colored with
white lead, red lead or Prussian blue, as
desired.
Capitalists and scientists are interested
in scheme to utilize the great water
power of the Lachlne Rapids, seven
miles from Montreal where the St.
Lawrence pours its whole body of water
over the rocks. It is said that Mr.. Edi-
son is at work preparing plan for con-
Quoting the operation.
A new remedy for skin diseases is
continual bath, the patient eating, drink
ing and sleeping there until cured. One
patient has been kept in such bath for
3S5 days. He is tied up always at night
to prevent him from slipping so as to be
drowned. The palms and toes become
much shriveled, but the rest of the skin
is unchanged. The water is kept at
ninety-eight degrees.
A London physician is Of opinion that
q turpentine bath is good for rheumatism,
gout, insomnia, laryngitis ard bronchitis,
and recommends the following method
of preparing it: Make saturated solu-
tion OF six ounces of yellow soap and
add to it three or four ounces Of oil Of
turpentine Shake we'll and then put it
I into the bath. which should be filled
with warm water. After fifteen minutes
immersion the patient should be put to
bed. .
Electricity cut up some queer capers
with a tree in New Orleans. A guy
cable was attached to the tree from an
electric light. In some unaccountable
way the cable became crossed with live
wire, and on wet days electr lofty ran
down the former. Several times it SET
the tree afre, and eventually started
blaze which destroyed that part Of the
tree above. the wire. The trunk was
examined, and its heart was found to
have been entirely eaten out by the cleo
tricity, leaving a mere shell.