The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1889-05-10
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Street cars in Chicago are to be heated
by gasoline.
Oxygen is a substance which exists
only in gaseous or aeriform state.
Carbon is the name gwen by chemists
to the substance of wood charcoal in its
purest form.
Several cases of blindness are reported
among Observers of the sun during the
eclipse in California.
In the st. Louis Railroad the power is
derived rom a 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 alumni
ium bronze had led the Austrian Govern
ment to experiment with it as material
for gun barrels.
During the past four years London has
had Society of Amateur Biologists,
which studies geology on Saturday after
noon excursions.
A Belgian has invented a 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 a method
of producing gas from crude oil at cost
of only five cents per 1000 feet.
Hydrogen is only known to us in a
state of gas aud 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 - ~ per cent. less di-
gestible albuminoids in hay that has been
kept over one year as compared with
new hay.
An examination of 200 houses in Chi
cago, in which diphtheris existed,
showed that but four of the whole num-
Der were perfect in their sanitary ar
engagements.
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
the Atlantic, and probably in all tenn
perste 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 Prussisn blue, as
desired.
Capitalists and scientists are interested
in a scheme to utilize the great water
power of the Lachine Rapids, seven
miles from Montreal, where the st.
Lawrence pours its whole body of water
over the rocks 1t is said that Mr.. Edi-
son is at work preparing a plan for CON
Quoting the operation.
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 a bath for
35j days. He is tied up always at night
to prevent him from slipping so as 10 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
a turpentine bath is good for rheumatism,
govt, Insomnia, laryngitis ard bronchitis,
and recommends the following method
of preparing it: Make a saturated solu-
ton of six ounces of yellow soap and
add to it three or four ounces of oil of
turpentine. Shake well and then put it
into the bath. which should be filed
with warm water. After fifteen minutes
immersion the patient should be put to
bed.
Electricity cut up some queer capers
with q tree in New Orleans. A guy
cable attached to the tree fF9m q az az
way the cable became crossed with live
wire, and on wet days electricity ran
down the former. Several times it set
the tree afre, and eventually started a
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 she'll