The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1891-05-16
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.


One of the industries of London is
the selling of sea water, which is de
iivered at the purchasers house for two
pence gallon. 1t is brought to town
every night by the railroad companies.
"A new California industry has been
started at Santa Monica. 1t is that of
putting up mussels in glass jars by a
process that makes them exceedingly
palatable.
The Irish Registrar General, in his
report on the potato crop in Ireland,
announces that $50. 901 acres of potatoes
were planted in 1890. as against 7s7, 234
acres in the preceding year, and that
the yield had decreased 1,037. 1893 tons.
The largest olive-oil factory in the
world will soon be built at Los Guilicos,
in Sonoma county, Cal. The plant will
cost quarter of million. The COM
pany has sixty acres of six-year-oldt trees,
and is planting 700 acres.
One of the greatest problems of the
future is thought to be the trans
formation of carbon energy into light
upon the same principle that the glow
worm and freely give their light, and
when a single pound of combustible
material will furnish as much light as
is now obtained from a ton of coal.
To detect fecal matter in drinking
water. Greiss recommends a feebly al
kaline solution of para-diazo-benzol-
sulphuric acid, which, with water con-
taminated as indicated, will produce a
yellow discoloration within five min
utes Try it on the old well next sum-
mer.
According to an account from Milan,
the National Bank of Italy is actively
interested in the organization of an
Italian steamship company for East
Africa. The capital of the company is
to be 20, ZOO, 900 francs (about 81, 0OO, 0O0),
and its immediate object will be to con-
meet the Somali and Zanzibar coasts by
line of Italian steamers. so as to be in
dependent of the English enterprise.
The base of celluloid is common
paper; by action Ci sulphuric and nitric
acids it is changed to gun cotton, then
dried, ground, and mixed with from
twenty to forty per cent of camphor.
after which it is ground fine, colored
with powder colors. cast in sheets,
pressed very hard, and at last baked be-
tween sets of super-heated rollers.
Rear Admiral Belknap, of the
United States Navy, combining his dis
covery of the greatest oceanic depths
yet found in the Japanese Kuro Siwo
with what other explorers have found
in different oceans, announces the con-
Il. L.
water is found, not in the central parts
of the great oceans, but near, or APP
proximately near, the land, whether of
continental mass or island isolation"
The specific gravity of new-laid
egg varies from 1850 to 1.090: an egg,
therefore, is heavier than sea water. the
specific gravity of which is i.0S0. When
kept, eggs rapidly lose weight, and be-
come specifically lighter than water;
this is owing to the diminution of bulk
in the contents of the egg, the conse-
quence of which is that portion of the
inside of the egg comes to be filed with
air.
The production of paper in the en-
tire world is estimated to be 5000, 000, 600
pounds per year. There are ss4 paper
mills and 1.1O6 paper machines in this
country. Germany has 500 mills and
1871 machines: France. 400 mills and 52J
machines; England, 361 mills and 541
machines; Scotland, 50 mills and 9S ma
chimes; Ireland, Is mills and - ma.
chimes; Russia, 1873 mills and 1877 ma
chimes, and Austria, 800 mills and 27C
machines.
One of the most hazardous manufac-
turing processes is likely soon to become
thing of the past. The great increase
of celluloid manufacture in recent years
has made camphor so scarce and dear
that the chemists have been exertine
themselves to find substitute for that
gum. Some one has now succeeded in
doing so, and company has been
formed to manufacture the new prod
uct, which is described as possessing
all the good qualities of the old infiam-
mable compound of gun cotton and
camphor, while being cheaper and, in
addition, absolutely incombustible.