The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-04-10
POPULAR SCIENCE.

Paper is coming largely INTO use as
building material.
In France experiments are being mado
with cork car springs.
Somebody claims to have found out
that the beard grows faster in sunny than
in rainy weather.
The imperial astrologers are very much
opposed to the extension of the Chinese
railroad toward Pekin.
By use of magnets to extract the parti-
cles of iron, many clays once useless now
serve for fair quality of pottery.
Some pieces of the Persian Gulf cable
laid twenty years ago show the core to
be as perfect as when it left the factory.
A Lartiguc single-rail railway is to be
built in the Argentine Eepublic from
Chilecite to the mineral mountains of
Famatina.
The structure Of the urraised coral
islands so far as yet examined appears to
lend no support to the Darwinian theory
of formation.
The artcsian we'll basin of Dakota sup
plies abundant water under pressure of
l4O pounds to the square inch from wells
1165 feet deep.
James Burnes, of Verona, Penn,
claims to have found anew the lost art
of copper welding. A company has been
formed to test his process.
The simplest way to moderate the glare
of incandescent lamps without lessening
the lighting power is to give the globes
thin coating of collodion.
An electric shoal-water indicator has
recently been invented by which the
action of a column of mercury completes
a circuit and rings q warning bell.
The United States inventors of electric
meters intend putting forth their best
exertions to capture the prize IN the
meter competition in Paris this summer.
The new Agricultural Department, it
is said, is to become kind of scientific
department, Bureau of Ethnology.
Philology, and what not, being attached
to it.
It is claimed that the diffusion process
extracts ten to fifteen per cent. more
sugar from cane than the best mill work.
Louisiana planters are adopting it as
rapidly as money allows.
Arkansas must be mineralogist's
paradise. Rich and very accessible de
posits of Ziuc-a metal rather scarce
heretofore in this country-have been
discovered at two or three places in the
State.
Paving blocks are now made OF Stag,
which, it is claimed, are equal to the best
Belgian stone. If the claim be made
good it may help eastern iron men In
their life and death struggle with south
eastern competition.
The bulk of the water of the ocean has
O very low temperature; it is ice cold at
the bottom even under the equator, but
on the surface within the tropics there is
q relatively thin film of warm water with
q temperature of from seventy degrees to
eighty four degrees Fahrenheit.
According to NJ. Laveran, of the
French Academy of Science, malaria is
due to On animal parasite, which belongs
to the lowest sort Of animal life. Most
infectious maladies in man, says NJ.
Laveran and NJ. Bouchard, who explained
Laveran's theory to the Academy, the
other day, are due to vegetable microbes,
but marsh malaria must be attributed to
an animal.
It is stated that Hamburg blacksmith
named Wolff has constructed an appara'
tus whereby all the doors in q theatre
may be opened simultaneously. The
other day experiments were made with
the apparatus at the Concordia Theatre,
and on somebody shouting "Firc!" the
inventor turned the handle of the ap-
paratus, liked in the refreshment bar of
the theatre, on which every exit in the
whole building opened at once.