The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1890-09-20
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

American shipbuilders are beginning
to devote more attention to the work Of
sheathing ships.
The Port Huron CMich.) tunnel is now
$50 feet under the river bed. The bore
is two-thirds done.
The manufacture of sugar from water
melons at Lodi, CAL, now amounts to
several carloads per year.
The use of electricity as motive power
for street cars will be an important Sec
tion of the census investigation of the
electrical industry.
A recent patent applies to machine
for busting poisonous powders on grow
ing plants, such as cotton or potatoes, to
I'D them of insects.
1t has just been discovered by a Ger
man chemist that strong as steel is, it
can be made yet stronger by an alloy OF
three to five per cent. of nickel.
A new megaphone has been placed on
the market in England, by which the
human voice can be so magnified that it
may be heard at distance of several
miles.
Two logs of curly poplar have been
shipped from North Carolina to the Ger
man Exposition which measured respec-
lively sixty-nine and seventy inches in
diameter.
Since certain sections of the tobacco
growing districts in the South have been
lighted by electricity, the ravages of the
tobacco worm are said to have been
greatly reduced.
AS ores can no longer be sent to the
United States, smelters will be built all
over Mexico. The gross bullion will
then be shipped for refining either In
England or Germany.
A new German water pipe is made of
glass covered with a coating of aspsalt
and fine sand. The advantages claimed
are resistance to ground moisture and to
acids and alkalies, and impermeability
to gases.
The latest experiments made with car
rier pigeons in connection with various
European armies show that the normal
velocity of the carrier in cara weather
and for a short distance is about 12lO
yards minute.
The piece of crown glass, forty inches
in diameter and two and half inches
thick, made in Paris for the object glass
of telescope for the University of South
ern California, will require two years Ia
Dor to turn into a finished lens.
Inexhaustible quantities of red and
yellow ochre have been laid bare by a
landslide five miles south of Drain, Ore
pon. It looks like rock, but dissolves
readily in water, and gives fine color on
wood. 1t is believed to be an extremely
valuable find.
Professor Thompson, who was teach
er in Philadelphia when he made the dis
coveries which have made him million
aire, predicts that sooner or later the
problem will be solved of getting cleo
trical power from fuel direct, without the
aid of steam.
Some beautiful specimens of artificial
malachite, we'll adopted for ornamental
work, have been produced by Professo
de Schulten, of the University of Hell
siugfors. The process is said to consist
IN evaporating solution of carbonate o.
copper in carbonate of ammonia.
An electric railway in Siam has beer
incorporated and will be built at ono
from Bangkok to Paknam, distance o
thirty miles. This road is to cost $500,
900. and Siamese capital will alone b
use An electric light company ha
also 1een organized and the plant ordere'
for Bangkok.
One of the new things now mentioned
is fruit and vegetable drum invented il
Georgia for receptacle for fruit ant
vegetables, so constructed, it is claimed
as to secure complete ventilation snt
allow inspection of its contents withou
opening. 1t is barrel shaped with stave
three -sixteenths of an inch thick, ant
may be made of any desired size.
NJ. Jablockoff, of electric candle fame
makes strong argument in favor o
going back to chemical reactions for tn
production of electricity as . motiv
power. The dynamo machine does no
utilize more than ten per cent. OF tn
fuel, while more than ninety per cent. ca
be obtained under favorable circun
atance. in electro-cnemical combinations