Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-06
POPULAR SCIENCE.
Philadelphia Record.


The importance of salt as an article of
diet, according to scientific writer, is
overrated. continued use of large
quantities of salt produces scurvy. The
popular belief that an appetite for salt is
universal among the lower animals is
without foundation i'll fact. Dogs, cats
and other carnivorouS animals show no
fondness for it, and the same is true of
the fruit eating animals. Even herbiv-
orous animals do not eat salt regularly
with their food, but only at long inter-
walls, which suggests the thought that
perhaps they take it as a vermifuge. In
certain parts of the world where salt is
unknown antelopes abound in countless
numbers, and in parts of Africa
where salt is abundant the ante
lOpes show no foudness foI it There are
many instances in which fiocis of sheep
and herds OF cattle have been reared sue
cessfully without salt. In certain parts
of Central Africa salt is more scarce than
gold, and to say that certain mau eats
salt is to say that he is very rich. Yet
the people living there have existed for
ages and have enjoyed the best of bar
barous health without taste OF salt from
infancy to old age. Salt is not in use in
Siberia as common constituent of food,
and the same was true of the North
American Indians previous to the disc0v-
cry of the continent by Europeans, and
for many years after, and is Still true of
the Pampas Indians of south America
The following is given as very effect
i've process for bronZing surfaces; %
Dissolve gum lac in four parts by volume
of pure alcohol, and then add bronze or
any other metal powder in proportion of
- a
The surface to be covered must be very
smooth In the case Of wood, one or
several coats of Meudeu or Spanish
white are given, ana the object
is carefully polished. The mixture is
painted on and when 4 sufficient number
of coats have been given the object is
well rubbed 4 special advantage of
this process is that the coating obtained is
not dull, but can be FURNISHED. ?. An
other method is TO coat the object with
copal or other varnish and when this has
dried So far rs to become tacky - dust
bronZa powder over it After few
hours the DronZed surface should be bur-
nIshed with a burnisher of steel or agate.
1t is well known that the nitrate of
amyl possesses the power of causing in
sensibility very quickly in a human being
breathing its fumes The effect is equiva-
lent, temporarily, to a paralytic stroke.
1t Is very cheap and plentiful, and Ed
ward Weston, the electrician proposes TO
use shells filed with this chemical instead
of gunpowder. He argues that
few gallons of this nitrate
dashed on the deck of warship
would soon render the crew helpless
The most wonderful ironclads would be-
even more vulnerable than the light
cruisers, for they would be sucking down
great draughts of air through their arti-
ticial yentilators, and the odor would
thus rapidly permeate the whole ship.
The whole crew being rendered helpless
for au hour or two the ship could, of
course, be towed into a safe port, while
the eaptors ventilated her and removed
the insenSible men
Two Improvements in umbrella making
have recently been patented. The first
is in the frame, where the git, which
holds the Stretcber 10 the rib, is now be-
ing made of hardened and tempered steel
instead Of soft iron, while at the same
time the fork end of the stretcher, by