The Colfax chronicle., 1891-05-09
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

The total production of anthracite
coal in 1889 was 40,6s5, ,15a tons of 2,a4O
pounds, valued at s65, ,71s.165.
The State of Washington, it is
claimed, has more coal than Pennsyl-
vania, more pine than Maine, and more
nsh than Massachusetts
According to the assertion of the
eminent physiologiss. Sappy, the stom-
ach contains 5,000,0O0 glands by which
gastric juice is secreied.
-Atea-planter of Darjeeling says that
fully one hundred million pounds of
tea are now yearly exported from India.
against thirty-three million pounds five
years ago.
Cotton spinning in Japan is very
depressed at the present time, and the
spinning companies are curtailing pro-
duction. Many machines which had
been ordered from foreign firms in
Yokohama are still awaiting delivery,
the japanese refusing to take them.
Beneath the finger nails is handy
place where great variety of micro
scopic forms of life are wont to gather.
Microscopists have found in the CLEAN
ings from finger nails, thirty-six kinds
of micrococci, eighteen bacilli. three
sarcin@ and the spores of common
mould. No wonder the scratch of a
nail is often poisonous. The fault is not
IN the nail scratch but in the seeds that
it implants in the plowed skin.
"A French chemist, NJ Anne Girard,
has shown that the potato called ''Rich-
ter Imperator' is well fitted for the pro-
duction of alcohol by distillation on a
commercial scale. At one operation
$4,000 kilogrammes of potatoes were
treated. and ten liters of alcohol, abso-
lutely pure, were obtained from every
one hundred kilogrammes of the tuber.
Another distillation gave fourteen liters
for the same quantity of roots The
draft" which resulted was readily
eaten by cattle.
I'm the building trades the six cities
in which the highest wages are paid are
New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, st. Louis.
Galveston and San Francisco. st. Louis
pays the highest wages for masonry,
New York for carpentry. San Francisco
for painting, Chicago for plumbing.
Santa Fe for roofing and Galveston for
common labor. The lowest wages are
paid in the Southern cities. Two adjoin-
ing cities seldom pay exactly the same
wages Philadelphia and Boston rank
below the five leading cities, and many
smaller Western cities pay higher wages.
The products of the mines of the
world were, in 1883, in tons: Iron, 49,
$4,000: copper, 341, 900; lead. 517,-
600: zinc, 344, 600; tin, $4,000. The
production of gold was 1862 kill
egrammes; of silver, 3,720, ,351. There
were, moreover, 466, 406, 900 tons of Goa,
brought to light, 5,712, 900 tons of petro-
leum. 7,a47,6 of salt and about 8, 70O,.
00G of other similar products. The grand
total in tons was sos, 939, 900, with
value of 81, 776, ,003, 900. To this vast sum
Goals alone contribute almost 500, ,0O0,-
600, or about 40 per cent. while the
precious metals, gold and silver, con-
tribute but $3.50, 10000
Bradford McGregor. the mechanical
expert ofCincinnati, has succeeded after
numerous experiments in uniting alumni
mum with glass, and he claims to be the
first who has done so. A large piece of
aluminium, with a glass tube in the CEN
ter, was turned in his lathe, and it was
impossible to detect the slight flaw or
joint where they came together. In
fact, it appears as one solid mass. Here
tofore no metal could be made to unite
with glass in which the contraction and
expansion were the same and it is
claimed that this discovery will create a
revolution in the way of reducing the
cost of fincandescentl lights, as it will take
the place of platinum, which costs $500
a pound, while the new compound will
not cost ten dollars.
Add carbon to pure iron and it be-
comes steel. Add hydro-carbon to
iron, and steel itself becomes so ex-
tensively modified that its properties
are not recognizable. Thus steel may
be as soft as pure iron. Add hydogen,
in varying quantity, and it has the
quality of residence, as in the watch
spring, or the quality of tenacity as in
the knife or razor, or may be given
nearly the hardness of a diamond, as in
a file. With steel at a low temperature,
from 400 degrees to $50 degrees Fahren-
heit, edge-tools are produced, the color
in the yellow shades; from 500 degrees
to 525 degrees various sorts of springs
are produced, color blue; while by heat
ing iron to whiteness and plunging il
into water, which is mainly composed
of hydrogen, files are produced, OF
forms even harder.-Indianapo News.
A Sweet Reminder.
A touching incident occurred at Black