Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-11-20
SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS.

1t takes about three seconds for a mes
sage to 60 from one end of the Atlantic
cable to the other end.
The electric spark has been photograph
ed by means of a specially constructed
camera, in which the sensitive plate rotat-
ed $500 times a minute.
Medical geology and cliratology are
mentioned by the London Lancet as de-
partments of the science to which more at
tention might be paid thar is. Their use
fulness is illustrated by the recently pub.
lished studies of Mr. Alfred Haviland on
the distribution of cancer in the British
Islands
An ingenious machine for wrapping
oranges, halls from Oneida county, n 7.
It will wrap in paper twenty-five hundred
oranges an hour. 1t is compact and handy
being three feet high, and eighteen inches
wide. The fruit passes from cylinder
down a slide, one orange at a time, into a
wire cup, which opens and drops the
orange on a square piece of paper cut by
the machine from a roller, then passes
through an aperture which wraps the pa
per and trims it, and then it passes on to
the carrier.
1t is asserted by man of high profess
sional ability that when the system needs
a stimulant nothing equals cup of fresh
coffee. Those who desire to rescue the
dipsomaniac from his cups will find no
better substitute for spirits than strong,
newly-made coffee without milk or sugar.
Two ounces of coffee, or one-eighth of a
pound to one pint of boiling water, make
first class beverage, but the water must
be boiling, not merely hot. 1t is asserted
that malaria and epidemies are avoided
by those who drink a cup of hot coffee
before venturing into the morning air
Burned on hot Goals coffee is disinfectant
for sick room.
The experiments of DIR. Tatum have done
not a little toward clearirg up the mystery
that has shrouded the physical mechanism
of death by electricity He has made it
more than probable that there is real diff
ference between the effect of continuous and
alternating currents, in that the former
seem to kill only through direct action
on the substance of the heart, while the
latter owe whatever added danger they may
possess to distinct action ON certain por-
lions of the nervis system. Dr. Tatum has
also shown that the difference in the effect
of the two classes of current is far less than
some foreign Investigators would have us
believe.
Present indications point to the proba-
bility of the eventual establishment of
central stations for the supply of brine,
cooled below the freezing point, which will
be carried under the streets in pipes, as
steam now is. Ice can then be made in
private houses, and by using water which
has been previously boiled, danger from
disease germs contained in ice gathered
from impure soarces will be avoided. The
cooling of dwellings in summer can then be
effected with as much ease as heating now
is in winter. Mechanical refrigeration
has been successfully appliedin tie laying
of piers for bridges, where treacherous sift
and quick-sand thwart all attempts to
excavate by ordinary methods. The semi
fluid material at the cassion is frozen by
the application of pure brine, and removed
while still solid.