The Bossier banner., 1890-02-20
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

Physicians of eminence now advo.
safe swimming as a necessity in our
physical developments.
"A machine that cuts matchsticks
makes 100000 a day. They are ar
ranged over a vat and have the heads
put on at the rate of 100000 per day by
one man.
The secret of making Russian sheet
iron is owned by the Government, and
is such an immense monopoly that 1T is
currently supposed to defray the entire
expenses of the government.
AT Padua the operation of the graft
ing of chickens cornea on the human
eye was recently successfully accom-
plished. The graft is said to have united
quickly and formed a cornea which was
very transparent, shining, and convex.
The State of Vera Cruz raises about
5000 tons of tobacco per annum, and ex-
ports about 700 tons. England is the
greatest buyer, taking e96, 900 worth of
manufactured and 5000 worth of raw,
or 9101, 900 worth out of total of e140, 900.
-Honey-farming in Germany yields
net income to the bee-keepers of Ii, ,OOO,-
900 marks (about four and a quarter
million dollars), and is so important an
industry that the Government affords it
the protection of special laws.
English municipalities sell gas for
from forty-fve cents to seventy-five
cents per 1000 feet, and the product is
better than the average furnished to
Americans. 1t is made from coal at a
cost of fifteen cents per 1000 feet.
The annual amount of sugar refined
in the United Kingdom may be put at
740, 600 tons, employing 4,260 men, or
thereabouts, in the refneries, which are
26 in number. This is exclusive of sub
sidiary and dependent industries. The
capital fixed and floating employed by
the refners, on the basis of an estimate
for the district of Greenock only, may
be put at "a, 25O,OOO, of which 60, 700, 900
is fixed.
"A German trade journal advocates
the following method for testing the
quality of roof States. The samples of
the slate to be tested should be carefully
weighed, and then put into boiling water
for quarter of an hour. The water
must, however, be fairly free from lime,
saltpeter and ammonia. The states are
then reweighed, and those that show
the greatest increase of weight are those
most capable of resisting deterioration.
1t is said to have been demonstra ted
that the cotton stalk, which has hitler
to been regarded as waste, contains
valuable fiber. A lot of the stocks wa 5
recently sent from Arkansas to factory
in New York to be operated on in the
same manner as fax and hemp. There
were returned about twenty different
grades of fibrous material, from coarse
strands of the stock to the glossy fiber
as soft as silk. Persons are now en-
gagged in perfecting a machine that will
spin the material. The fiber is sufi-
ciently strong to make the best of bag
ging as well as cloth as fine as linen.
Hitherto it has been supposed that
English miners in the middle of the
eighteenth century first utilized parallel
rails, like modern railway tracks, in the
transportation of burdens. In ''De-
scription of the World" by Sebastian
Munster, 1541, a wood cut has been found
containing representation of little
four-wheeled cart loaded with ore, and
with man behind showing it along
parallel rails. The scene of the wood
cut is an Alsatian mine of the first part
of the sixteenth century. Munster calls
the car in question instrumentum tract
Drum, and mentions that it's four wheels
were of iron.