Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-09-18
SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS.

Among the most ingenious inventions
lately exhibited is machine fol-
drilling square, oblong, or hexagonal holes,
heretofore thought to be impossible.
In Paris cafes are regularly established
audiphones connecting with the theatres,
opera houses, and concert halls. For a
cine (halI france any one may listen
for FIVE minutes to the various plays,
songs and operas.
A French savant has been calculating
the time required to perfol m journey
around the world, with this result: A man
walking day and night, 42S days; rail
way train, 40 days; sound, at a medium
temperature, 3212 hours; cannon ball,
2l4 hours; light, trifie over one-tenth OF
secono; electricity, trife under one-tenth
of a second.
Lieutenant John P. Finley of the signal
service has compiled statement of the
number of to1nadoes in this country for
the last seventeen years. While in 1870
there were only nine, the number has in
creased annually, the year 1886 having
been credited with $50 But since that
time there has bean d gradual decrease in
the number, only AZ having been recorded
in 1889.
Another use for the phonograp h is men
toned by the Christian Union. The New
England Indian tribes ale fast dy ing out,
but the photograph is to preserve their
language. The snake-dance song of the
Passamaquoddies has been sung into the
photograph; so LAS the Mohawk war song
anL, a considerable number of old folk
tales.
Steno-telegraphic system was wired for
the first time in the chamber of Deputies,
in Paris, recently. 1t is the invention OF
NJ. Cassagner, a civil engineer. The in
strument makes possible the Transmission
of short Or long hand reports Of speeches
any distance, as they come from the desk
to the writer at much greater speed than
has ever been reached. By this system,
rs, 900 words were trans, litted TO Brussels
$4,000 to Lyons, and 200 to MarseiIles,
The rate was 1870 TO 200 words a minute,
while only 100 to 120 words are ordinarily
sent In the same time.
New York's great aqueduct was opened
recently, and water supply of 3l0,0O0,-
100 gallons every "a hours is available.
1t has one of the most stupendous works
which even this generation. so familiar
with stupendOuSness of all kinds, has pro-
duced It's length is about thirty miles,
being for nearly all that distance far I'M
der ground, and passing by an ingenious
syphon system, under instead Of over the
Harlem river Its cost is about S23, 000,-
900 already, ard the system of dams in
process of construction will add many more
millions to that.
In the chronological part of the forty
first annual report of the trustees of the
New York State Museum of n ltural His
tory, lately published, reference is made
to the statements which have been adj
vanced as to the long Imprisonment of
beetles in furniture The writer suggests
that when such cases occur, the condl-
tons may bring about lethargic state,
In which respiration and accompanying
phenomena are almost Or entirely suspend
ed through the complete exclusion of air
"a hermit sealing) by the rubbing, oiling,
vanishing, or other polishing which the
furniture has undergone. As an instance
of prolonged vitality, he quotes and ex-
tract from the third report on the insects
of New York, by DR.. Fitch. In this pas
sage DR.. Fitch says: I'm 1856. son of
Gen. Israel Putnam, residing a Williams
town, Mass, had table made from one
OF hi apple trees. Many years afterward,
tie gnawing of an insect was heard in
one of the leaves of this table, which noise
continued for a year or two, when large
long horned beetle made its exit there
from. Subsequently the noise was l.eard
again, and another insect, and afterward
third, all of the same kind issued from
this table leaf, the first one coming out
twenty and the last one twenty light years
after the tree was cut down.