Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-12-25
POPULAR SCIENCE.
Typhoid in Garden Truck-New Method Of
Treating Zone Fractures-The World Is
Wsbbling-A Rival of Electricity.
Greatest Aerolita-What is
Sugar, ETC., Etc.

DR.. c. NJ. Cresson has somewhat
stirred up the people of Philadelphia by
announcing the discovery of typhoid
bacilla, in large representation, in the
common garden celery. The idea ad-
vanoed Is that garden vegetables raised
by heavy manuring are very propaga-
ton house for typhoid fever. What
next? -.
The next great scientific discovery is
heralded from Havana, Cuba. A medi-
cal student there has found that an ap-
plication of phosphorus in the case of
broken bones causes those bones to unite
in half the time required for them to do
SO without it, and the union is firmer.
The phosphorus is given internally in the
form OF phosphide Of zinc, from one
eighth to one-quarter of a grain daily.
A knowledge of the fact that phosphorus
enters largely into bone structure gives
the thing high degree of plausibility.
1t has long been thought by many that
our marked change of seasons as to uni
form character must be wholly due to
some peculiar condition upon the earth,
and not to outside planetary influences
as some contend. Mr.. NJ. Radau has
just announced to the Paris academy of
sciences new theory of his own, going
towards an establishment of the former
theory. He says movement of the sea
causes the changes, by forcing the earth
into a slight deviation of axis. By cal
culations carefully made he has decided
that mass of water 500 cubic miles in
extent could produce upon the whole
earth an effect large enough to be felt.
Compressed carbonic acid gas is now
coming into use on shipboard for frsez-
ing meat, brine being cooled by the ex-
pandine gas and circulated in pipes. On
q steamer which carried SO 900 carcasses
of mutton to Liverpool from South
America the meat was kept in excellent
condition by this process. with q saving
of four-fifths of the former coal con-
sumption for working the refrigerating
machinery. a.
New interest is awakening 10 COM
pressed air as q means Of distributing
motive power. Birmingham, Ala. has
been experimenting with 1t on pretty
large scale, and Professor Lupto1 says it
has been discovered that the air from the
street mains may be applied to either
light or heavy work, the engines now
used by consumers in Birmingham vary
ing from one-half to fifty horse power In
size. The loss by friction through trav-
cling by pipes is slight, even at a dis
lance of two miles, and the indicated
horse power at some of the places served
is as much as 70 per cent of that at the
COMPRISING station. The compressed
air may be used for driving electric
lighting machinery or for working street
railways. -
Those "shooting stars, as we call
them, are meteorites or aerolites. They
are composed of hard, irony substance,
which is usually destroyed in the passage
of the body through the atmosphere,
before the earth's surface 10 reached,
but not always. Aerolites Of consider
able size do sometimes reach the earth,
and the largest one now known on the
Western hemisphere has lately been
safely housed in the national museum of
Brazil, at Rio Janeiro. 1t weighs
IL 800 pounds. Originally it lay imbed-
dsd in the ground near Bendego creek,
in one of the most inaccessible portions
OF Brazil. The cost of transporting it
from the place where it first struck
American soil was betrayed by Baron
Greatly. The survey of the route and
preliminary arrangements occupied three
months; Its journey to the capital occu-
pied near five months more.
During the more than four months
that it was being hauled and rolled
through the wilderness to the nearest
railroad station by man and mule power
it crossed over 100 streams Of all sizes,
was taken over one mountain chain $500
feet IN height, besides many smaller ele-
vations. All of this in region whsrl
the best roads are only mule paths. The