The Opelousas courier., 1891-04-25
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

Deposits of mica have been discovered
in the northern part of South Australia.
A company with so, 600, 600 capital
has been formed to work a nickel mine
in Oregon.
Lead in the United States amounted to
49,, 900 tons of 1000 pounds, Or a little
less than in 1880.
OF speIter 68, 900 tons were produced
in the United States in 1890, an increase
of fifteen per cent.
A patent has been taken out in France
for an electric furnace for the rapid in
cineration of human remains.
DR.. Ludwig S~chreiner, of Stuttgart,
Germany, has brought forward a new
bleaching agent, which he calls ozonin.
The production of copper in the
United States in 1890 amounted to 278,-
$40, 900 pounds, far exceeding any
previous record.
An English company is working a
silver mine in Bolivia which yields more
than three hundred and sixty ounces to
the ton, while specimens of almost pure
silver are met with.
A brilliant black varnish for iron as
well as for some other substances can be
made by stirring up ivory in shellac
varnish. The article to be vanished
should be coated when the material is
applied.
A telegraph operator in Cheyenne,
Wyoming, has invented an electric ma
chine, to be applied to street cars, for
indicating the numbers of business houses
and the names of streets while the car Ia
in motion.
Collais, a little village near Nismes,
France, has its streets lighted by a 1900.
light dynamo driven by a small water
fall, and during the day the current is
used to drive the pumps for the village
water supply.
Statistics collected abroad show that
for short distances, as 1000 yards, wira
cables furnish the most efficient means
Of transmitting power, but for greater
distances, as 5000 yards, electricity is by
far the least wasteful of all methods.
The Dairy Association of Kiel, Ger
many, has offered a prize of $3.50 for an
improved method of determining the
amount Of fatty matter in new milk,
skinned milk and butlsrniIk without
the use off chemical balance, the resulta
to be as accurate as those obtained by
the g~iavimetric process.
&&4
The newly discovered deposits Of
nickel and chrome ores near Franken-
stein, in Silesia, are turning out to be
very rich. Herr Krupp has ordered the
immediate delivery Of 100 tons of nickel
ore, twenty tons of which have already
been dispatched from the mine. He
offered $500, 900 for these mines.
III the history Of railroads it is to be
recorded that the Revere Beach g Lynn
Railroad, of Massachusetts, is running a
train without a bell cord and that the
means of communication between con-
ductor and engineer is entirely arranged
by q code Of signals passing over an cleo
trio cable. The entire road il equipped
with this signal which works perfectly,
and the code of signals which q be
transmitted is only limited by the intel
ligence of the conductor and engineer.
Every locomotive has power and
weight to spare when its train is in mo-
ton, but is frequently unable to start
the same train from q condition of rest.
The difficult point is in the adhesion of
the wheels to the rails. To prevent the
wheels from slipping sand is used. but a
more modern and effective method Of in
creasing the traction is to pass a current
of electricity from the driving-wheels to
the rails. A Baltimore and Ohio loco
motive has been fitted up with apparatus
of this kind.