Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-09-04
SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGs.

The light seen through the new eye
piece of the Lick telescope will be 1000
times as bright as that seen by the naked
eye.
The temperature of the snow next to
the ground is found by Sig. Christoni to
vary but little while that Of the upper
most layer is sometimes nearly 90 Fab.
higher The air an inch above the snow
is always colder than the top of the snow,
and colder than the air twenty inches
higher.
DR.. Taylor, of the department of agri-
culture in Washington has invented new
fash-light intended to take the place of
several which have of late proved danger
Gus in practice. The composition consists
largely of charcoal made from the silky
down of the milkweed, form of carbon
which he prefers because of its freedom
from ash.
It is well known that moths and butter
flies give off odors either from the wings
or the hinder part of the body. Certain
moths, as the parent of the common red
and black bear" caterpillar, and of the
salt-marsh caterpillar, have retratile
organ, which, when thrust out, throws off
strong odor, somewhat like laudanum.
The great siphon in the new aqueduct
for the water supply OF New York city is
considered a most wonderful piece of
hydraulic engineering. It conveys the
metropolitan water supply across the Har
Ian d depth of 307 feet beneath the river
bed. Certain advantages were gained by
this method over a stone or steel vladuct,
which, it is believed, will counterbalance
its greatest cost Not the least Of these is
its immunity from danger of foreign at
tax
A curious machine for cleaning out the
Sacramento river and various bars Is about
to be constructed at San Francisco. The
machine is not dredger, but great sub
marine plough which simply clears the
channel as it runs. 1t is propelled by
three engines of the combined power of
fifty-four horses, and. while going at the
rate Of twelve miles an hour, scoops out a
space SIX feet deep and forty feet wide.
The debris is showed on either side so that,
instead of the banks being weakened, they
are strengthened,
Icebergs originate in West Greenland,
which Ensign Rodman of the Hydrogra-
phic office calls 1.-THE great berg factory. :"
The ice massed in the interior of the coun-
| try is gradually forced out to sea by glacial
| movements on land which advance at the
rate of at least fifty feet day. The glacier
is broken in hugh masses, when once In
| the water, by its buoyancy and brlttleness
and the currents. The process is called
| calving. p berg varies in size, the aver
age being sixty to 100 feet high and 800 to
500 yards long of exposed surface, which is
usually an eighth of the whole mass
A prominent medical journal calls atten-
ton to the growth of the ''naptha habit"
among the female employees Of rubber
factories. The inhalation of naptha
fumes produce a peculiarly agreeable in
ebiration. Naptha is used to clean rub
Der, and is kept in large boilers, to the
valve of which the employees obtain access
and breathe the fumes. The habit was
| introduced from Germany, and is chiefly
found in the New England states.
While waiting at drug store recently.
curiosity was excited by call for color
less iodine; and after the customer had
been supplied with the preparation, in
quiries in regard to the composition,
brought out the fact that the iodine solu-
tivn was bIeached by the addition of
ammonia, so that the purchaser really OBJ
tanned a solution of iodide Of ammonium,
possessing none of the characteristic pro-
perties of idone itself Colorless iodine is
said to be in considerable demand; but it
contains no active iodine at all and is
evidently the invention of some druggist or
physician with more ingenuity than chem
ical knowledge. The possibility of the
formation of the violent danger in its
anufacture to say nothing of its valueles
properties as counter-irritant.