The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1890-02-19
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

The difference between the weight OF
brain in man and woman increases with
civilization, aud is most naked in the
Caucasian races.
Recent discoveries made by the use Of
the spectroscope show that all the heavenly
bodies appear to be composed of the
same chemical elements.
Siberia is said to have spot of ground
about thirty miles square that has not
thawed out for hundred years, and is
frozen to 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 cement made by
adding teaspoonful of glycerine to
gill of glue. II can be used for fasten-
ing labels on tins.
About $500 watches are daily manu-
featured in the United States. A first
class American watch, well kept, will
last thirty years, or sometimes even
longer, before the works wear out, but
the average life of an ordinary low-priced
watch is ten years, while that Of a
lower grade is seven years.
1t has now become well established
fact that waste-water power can be con-
verted into electric energy, conveyed
from ten to one hundred miles on a small
copper wire in amounts from ten to five
hundred horse power, 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
its character when dried. 1t becomes
inert. Even charcoal will not burn in it
when heated to redness, nor phosphorus
become luminous. AS yet there is no ex-
PLANTATION.
1t is found that files can be proftably
recut by cleaning them and placing them
in acidulated water between two plates
of carbon, and closing the circuit so as
to form a real voltdic 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 retempering
the metal.
Experiments of an encouraging charac-
ter have been made in the manufacture
of spikes, with view to making fin
ished article by rolling the bar so that its
width shall be the length of the spike,
and in such shape that spikes may be cut
from it with shears, similarly as a cut nail
is made, excepting that the head is
formed in the rolling process. In tests
made by running through some steel
nails that have been slowly heated for
two and one-half hours the result showed
that with some changes in the working
mechanism the operation was entirely
practicable.
1t seems that the project for tele-
scope still larger than that of the Lick
Observatory, and to be mounted on Will
sons Peak in Southern California, has
not been abandoned. The crown glass
disk for the lens is already cast, and has
been exhibited at the Paris Exposition
by its maker OIantois). The other, the
flint glass, is yet to be cast; it may be
year or more before it is ready, and the
Clarks can do nothing about grinding
the lenses and making the object glass
until they get both pieces. The raw
material Il. e., the two disks of glass un-
ground) will cost over SIS, 900.