The Opelousas courier., 1891-09-26
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.
Electrical smelling is announced.


Compressed coal dust is coming into
| extensive use in France.
An electrician predicts that electrical
fireworks will o supersede those now
used.
A wool of good quality is said to have
been made from the fibre of the fir by
the aid of electricity.
The maximum safe velocity of cast iron
fly wheels shouh not exceed a rim speed
of eighty feet per second.
Of 305 weather. forecasts issued in
South Australia in 1890, $50 were veri-
fed and forty were partially verified.
1t is stated that coffee is a germicide,
the baeilli of cholera and typhus having
been destroyed by the infusion of coffee.
An attempt to produce artificial rain
is to be mace in Kansas. Balloons filled
with hydrogen and oxygen gas will be
sent up and exploded by electricity.
Thunder storms are gradually decreas-
ing in number in the larger towns of
Natal, South Africa, according to the
Superintendent of the Natal Observa-
tory.
A Partisan camerist has devised a
method of taking panoramic views by
causing the anera to revolve or an axis
SO that the sensitive paper may ''take
in" the horizon.
A German biologist says that the two
sides OF % face are never alike. In two
cases out of five the eyes are out of line;
one eye is stronger than the other in
seven persons out of ten and the right
ear is generally higher than the left.
In Sweden an improved quality of
glass for use in microscope and other
fine lenses is secured by the addition of
phosphorus and chlorine. Absolute
transparency, great hardness, aui sus-
ceptibility to the finest polish are thus
obtained.
More than lao different applications
of electric motors have been enumerated,
and the number is still increasing. The
sizes of the motors range from those
having the power of a mouse up to one
of 5000 horse power, which is in opera
ton near London.
Experiments with electric motors in
elevating and depressing heavy guns
and turning them in the right direction
have been made in France. A. saving of
time was effected. The three Gillian
warshlps building in France will be pro-
vided with such appliances.
The latest scheme for direct railway
communication between England and
France provides for a double water
tight tube, capable of containing two
railway tracks, and sunk about forty feet
in the channel. "The engineer propos-
ing this method proposes to utilize the
displacement and buoyance of the tube
to give the necessary support, piles be-
ing driven into the channel, to which
the tube would be chained to- prevent it
rising"
The stsc~hiseophone'' is the name CIV
en- to an instrument for discovering flaws
in metals. invented by Captain Louis De
Place of the Paris school of cavalry.
The instrument consists of a microphone
combined with a mechanical striker and
a sonometer. Id using this instrument
one operator directs the striker over the
surface of the metal under examination,
while another listens at the telephone in
an adjoining 70 )m. When the striker
hits a point over q flaw the sound Is in
creased, and the increase is so magni6ed
by the microphone that the listener at
the telephone can detect its presence.
Tests of the instrument were made at
Ermont on the rails for the Northern
railway company, and in every case
where a flaw was indicated by the in
strumcnt it was found to exist on break
ing the rail.