The Opelousas courier., 1890-03-29
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

The difference between the weight OF
brain in man and woman increases Will
civilization. and is most NAKED IN the
Caucasian races.
Recent discoveries made by the use OF
the sDectroscope show that all the heavenly
bodies appear to be composed OF L
same chemical clements.
Siberia is said to have aspot OF grounu
about thirty miles square that has NOT
thawed out for a hundred years, and Is
! frozen to a depth Of sixty feet.
Professor Woodward declares that IN
about two thousand two hundred years
| the rock over which the waters plunge
at Niagara will all be worn away.
Leather, paper or wood may be firmly
fastened to metal by a cement made oy
adding a teaspoonful of glycerlne to a
Gill of Glue. 1t can be used for tasten-
ing labels on tins.
About $500 watches are daily manu-
featured in the United States. A hrst-
class American watch, well kept, WILL
last thirty years, Or sometimes even
LONGER, before the works wear out, but
the average life Of al ordinary iow-prlceo
watch is ten years, while that OF a
lower grade is seven years.
It has now become a we'll established
fact that waste-water power can be con-
yerted into electric energy, conveyed
from ten to one hundred miles on a small
conner wire in amounts from ten to tive
hundred horsepower, at a cost not to
exceed six thousand five hundred dollars
per mile for the greater distance and the
larger power.
A bomb-shell has been thrown into the
scientific world through the discovery OF
Brereton Baker, of Dulwich College,
about oxygen. That gas, which is known
as the great agent of combustion, loses
;ts character when dried. 1t becomes
inert. Even charcoal will not burn IN 1t
when heated TO redness, nor phosphorus
become luminous. As yet there Is no ex-
PLANTATION.
It is found that files can be proftably
recut bv cleaning them and placing them
in acidulated water between two plates
of carbon, and closing the circuit so as
to form a real voltaic cell. The hydro
gen liberated clings to the points of the
teeth of the file, protecting them from
further action, but the cutting action
{ proceeds freely over the remainder of the
file. This process speedily brings back
the teeth of an old file to the original
shape and dimensions, without necessi-
tating either softening or retemperlne
the metal.
Experiments of an encouraging charac'
ter have been made in the manufacture
of spikes, with a view to making a fin
ished article by rolling the bar SO that it,
width shall be the length of the spike.
and in such shape that spikes may be Gu
from it with shears, similarly as a cut mai
is made, excepting that the head i
formed in the rolling process. In test
made by running through some stee
nails that have been slowly heated TO
two and one-half hours the result showed
that with some changes in the working
mechanism the operation was entlrei.
practicable.
It seems that the project for a tele
scope still larger than that of the Lie
Observatory, and to be mounted on VII
sons Peak in Southern California, ia
not been abandoned. The crown glas
disk for the lens is already cast, and ha
been exhibited at the Paris Expositlo
by it's maker (Mantois). The other, th
flint glass, is yet to be cast; it may be
year or more before it is ready, and th
Clarks can do nothing about grindin
the lenses and making the object gtas
until they get both Pieces. = The IA
material Il. e., the two disks of glass VI
ground) will cost over $4,000. s