The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-07-11
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

The process of electric bleaching
now used in big paper plants is from
forty to seventy per cent. cheaper than
the use of chloride of lime.
The Milling World says American
-four sells in Europe on its merit, and
that eighty-two per cent. of the -four
exported hence last year went to En-
gland. Our roller -four is the best I'M
the world.
A laboratory intended mainly for
the study of bacteria in milk is to be
established in Berlin. Infant mortality
is known to be largely due to unwhole-I
some milk, which can be rendered
harmless by destroying the germs.
An English physician has achieved
some instructive experiments in the
use of the graphophone for recording
physical symptoms, such as coughs
and pulses. A cough of to-day can
always be recorded and compared
readily with one of days before.
The saving which viii result in
substituting electricity for horseaesh on
the street railways of this country is
limited at by the fact that the operation
OF one street railway in England by
electricity will result in saving $50, 900
per annum over and above the present
cost of operating it by horses.
At a recent meeting of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, Prof. TAFT showed
theoretically that water could be COM
pressed to about three-fourths its or
iginal bulk. The compressibility of sea
water is 1872 of that of fresh water. II
the water of the ocean were suddenly
to become eompressible, four per cent.
OF the inhabitable land Of the lobe
would be submerged, because the mean
depth of water would be increased 116
feet.
The World of Science says: sAn
improved composition for use in clean
ing cloth and other fabrics has been
patented, the object of the invention
being to produce composition which
may be used with cold water and be-
effective without rubbing or attrition,
the action of the composition being to
dissolve the dirt and free it from the
fabric or article to be cleansed." The
danger is that such competitions are
apt to dissolve the fabric as well as
the dirt.
Aristotle divided matter into four
elements; and chemists few years ago
recognized about seventy primary sub
stances as making up the universe.
The latter view is now in turn OUT
grown, for, as Prof. j. P. Cooke states,
the recent study of the rarer earths
leaves US in doubt whether we have an
indefinite number of elements. or only
one under unnumbered manifestations;
and spectrum analysis indicates that
many of our elements are decomposed
in the sun and fixed stars.
-Borax, as an anti-cholera specific,
is recommended by an Italian physi-
clan, in doses Of five or six grammes--
about seventy-seven grains-a day.
He believes that it destroys the mi-
crobes in the intestinal canal and even
in the blood, and grounds his faith on
the experience in seven contiguous
borax factories in an italian village
during the terrible epidemic of 1865.
The workmen in these establishments
were quite free from the disease, which
carried off a third of the inhabitants In
and about the village.
Professor Angel, of Michigan Uni-
versity, furnishes the following as q
test of the purity Of water for drinking:
dissolve about half teaspoonful OF
the purest white sugar in pint bottle
completely full of the water to be-
tested and tightly stopped; expose it to
daylight and temperature up to
seventy degrees Fahrenheit. After q
day or two examine. holding the bottle
against something black, for whit
ish floating specks, which will betray
the presence of organic matter in cons
siderable proportion"