The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-12-28
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

-Ramie is an excellent fiber, better,
stronger and finer than cotton or wool,
and almost equal to silk in luster
-"Anti-squeak," is the stuff they
now put in shoes. 1t looks like shoddy,
but is more costly than leather.
The stone quarries of Europe en-
ploy at least 500, 900 workmen, and pro-
duce an annual value of not less than
sec, 1000, 900.
massachusetts factory laws are be-
ing enforced; children are not allowed
to clean the machines, and girls must do
up their hair to avoid being scalped.
"A Connecticut Yankee has con-
ceived the idea of making new shoes of
old ones. They are not made to wear,
but to sell, and are sent out West. In
every city of the country his agents
purchase old shoes.
The lamp experimental with in
France, to be used on the battlefield to
search for the killed and wounded, is
about the size of locomotive headlight.
1t has powerful reflector, and the light
is produced by the combustion of two
magnesium wires.
From $4,000 analyses in German
laboratory it appears that fluctuations
in the solids of milk depend almost en-
tirely on variations of the fat. The even
ing milk is richer than that of the morn
ing, and the November and December
milk than that of other months.
There has lately been perfected
process, by German chemist, whereby
any soft or porous wood can be made as
hard as lignum vitae, and serve the same
purposes. 1t is done by forcing oil into
the pores of the soft wood, and then sub
jecting it to intense pressure.
An English navigator at Santander,
on the north coast of Spain, has found
she sea waves in prolonged and heavy
gale of wind to be AZ feet high and 1856
feet long. Other estimates Of storm
waves in the South Atlantic give height
of SO feet and length of 400 feet In
the North Sea the height of crest seldom
exceeds 10 feet and the length $50 feet.
"A new substitute for tobacco is
being introduced. 1t is mixture of
British herbs-the particular plants are
kept secret-and smokers who have
tried the compound declare it to be de-
liciously fragrant, slightly exhilarating
and withal soothing to the nerves. Com
bined with ordinary tobacco it is said to
make a blend as satisfactory as that of
chicory with coffee, but such blend is
illegal and punishable by very heavy
fines. At present it is prepared in Scot
land under the name of ''herb tobacco
and 1t has rapidly grown in favor.
Some interesting notes on human
skulls, found in an old monastery in the
Keadron Valley, near Jerusalem, have
been given by DR.. Dwight in medical
journal. He concludes that the eau
casian skull has, during the past thir-
teen centuries, increased two inches in
average circumference, and gained
brain-holding capacity of three and
half cubic inches. The growth has been
wholly in the frontal and upper region,
and none at all in the lower portions
associated with purely animal functions.
This is the most important discovery in
ethnology of recent date.-St. Louis
Globe Democrat.
During his recent residence in Ton
quin, M. A. Yvert successfully employed
bichloride of mercury for the cure of
cholera, in doses varying from 0.02 to
O.O4 grain in twenty-four hours. OF
forty-five patients so treated, nine only
succumbed, or about twenty per hun
dred, the normal rate in that region, as
in Europe, being sixty-six per hundred.
1t was also administered to GONZALES
cents in districts where the epidemic
had again broken out and had already
made one victim. None of those who
took this preventive medicine were at
tackled.