The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-05-31
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

Within ten years the woolen-n,ill
property of Maine has increased from
81, 1862, 900 to S2,O76,6 Cos.
Artificial ice can be manufactured,
so it is said, at retail cost of about
eight dollars per ton, or forty cents per
hundred pounds.
| Tho yew tree seeds and leaves have
lately been made of use in the shape
1 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 a pressure of 1000 atmospheres
can be developed for the purpose of
studying the influence of great pressure
on animal life, has been exhibited to
biologists in France. With it deep-sea
animals can be observed under their
| natural compression.
| it is always kept for three or four days
in alright 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 ma
hogany table, "blacked" with 1ogwood
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 a hot stove, and after this it is oiled
with cod oil.
i Attention is again being directed to
lthe utilizing of the banana. From the
stalk and leaf of this plant, it is stated,
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, ii is thought this fiber
will command large commercial attcn-
ton for the manufacture of textile
goods, as we'll as for paper and other
purposes.
Says a broor-corn dealer: "a few
years ago, all brtom corn was so bleached
with sulphur tmes as to make it so
, white that it pearly destroyed its plia-
bility, and it Smetimes broke to pieces
much more RAPIDLY than it should have
done. Now til, broom-makers have gone
to the otherextreme, They dye their
broom corn 50 green that housekeepers
are afraid tobreak off one of the splints
to test a Gale with, for fear they may be
poisoned with Paris green"
-Electriity is applied to device for
the compilation and tabulation of CEN
sus and oher returns of similar ma
ture which require summation and class
ification inder various heads and in diff
ferent gpups. The method consists, es-
sentiallN 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 cleo
tro-magnets, the circuits through which
are controlled by the perforated strips.
Fhis system is thoroughly practical
Inne, and it is estimated that its use viii
'lsave nearly $5S0,000 in compiling the re-
turns of the next census.