The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1890-05-31
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.


within ten years the woolen-mill
property OF Maine has increased from
e1, 282, 900 to so, ,078, 1896.
Artificial leo can be manufactured,
so It is said, at retail cost OF about
eight dollars per ton, or forty cents per
hundred pounds.
The yew tree seeds and leaves have
lately been made of use in the shape
OF an oily product called taxine, which
solidifies on cooling and possesses con-
siderable narcotic properties.
From many different points comes
the news that machines for making ice
have been set up, and that these arti-
fetal ice companies are taking orders
to supply ice in any quantity. Thus
necessity once more proves itself to be
the mother of invention.
An apparatus of iron and glass, in
which pressure of 1000 atmospheres
can lie developed for the purpose Of
studying the influence Of great pressure
or animal life, has been exhibited to
biologists in France. With it deep-sea
animals can be observed under their
natural compression.
In making charcoal for gunpowder
it is always kept for three or four days
in air-tight cylinders before picking
over and ten days to fortnight before
it is ground. This, it is said, is done to
counteract the well-known tendency to
fire If exposed too soon after it is made.
The preparation Of levant leather
is peculiar, and laborious. 1t is first
"struck out" in warm water on a ma
hogany table, ''blacked" with logwood
and iron liquor, then polished by revolv-
ing rollers and grained up" by the
workman with 'corking board" on a
table. The grain is set into the leather
on hot stove, and after this it is oiled
with cod oil.
Attention is again being directed to
the utilizing of the banana. From the
stalk and leaf of this plant, IL isstated,
beautiful silken fiber can be obtained,
which, when manufactured into dress
goods, closely resembles Irish poplin.
When suitable machinery for decorti-
eating it is found, it is thought this fiber
will command large commercial atten-
tion for the manufacture of textile
goods, as we'll as for paper and other
purposes.
Says broom-corn dealer: "a few
years ago, all broom corn was so bleached
with sulphur fumes as to make it so
white that it nearly destroyed it's plia-
bility, and it sometimes broke to pieces
much more rapidly than it should have
done. Now the broom-makers have gone
to the other extreme. They dye their
broom corn so green that housekeepers
are afraid to break off ono of the splints
to test cake with, for fear they may be
poisoned with Paris green"
Electricity is applied to device for
the complication and tabulation of CEN
sus and other returns of similar ma
ture which require summation and class
ification under various heads and in diff
ferent groups. The method consists, es-
sentially, in first recording the data re-
lating to each person by printing holes
in sheets or strips of paper and then
counting or tallying these data either
separately or in combination by means
of mechanical counters operated by elec-
tro-magnets, the circuits through which
are controlled by the perforated strips.
This system is a thoroughly practical
one, and it is estimated that its use will
save nearly $3.50, 900 in compiling the re.
turns of the next census,