Brenham weekly banner. [volume] (Brenham, Tex.) 1877-1907, 1891-04-02
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
EUROPEAN TRAIN LIGHTING.

experiments III Tie 0lSCGElC HSuG-
ing of trains on German railway
have been made the subject of a
report by Prof. Kohlrausch. He
concludes that only the accumulation
system is adapted for such lighting,
the batteries being charged by
means of fixed engines at various
stations, and changed when ap-
preaching exhaustion. He cannot
commend the use of power from the
locomotive or the carrying of a
dynamo, on account of the increase
in the couplings of the train. Trains
on Swiss railways are being sue
cessfully lighted by accumulaters.
TELEGRAPHIC LIGHTNING.
The duration of telegraphic cur
rents has been calculated in Ger
many, with these results: In ordi-
nary Morse working, the signalling
current lasts .125 second; and with
the Hughes apparatus, only from
.04 to OF second. With the Meyer
multiplex apparatus, however, cur
rents may have a duration of as
little as .007 second, and with the
Dulaney multiplex, of .002 second;
while the wheatstone automatic,
when transmitting 600 words per
minute, sends out $4,000 currents
every minute, each having, therefore,
duration of .001S second.
A French society has been trying
electric motors for elevating and
depressing heavy guns, and for
moving them into direction; using
a separate motor for each of the
two operations. A considerable
saving of time is effected. Three
war vessels for Chill, now being
built in France, are to be fitted with
such motors, to be driven from the
electric light circuit.
Rabbits have been known by NJ.
G. Colin to live in perfect health
for two months in open hutches ex-
posed to a cold of 10 degrees above
TO Is degrees below zero. Sheep
and pigs also survive severe weather,
but horses and dogs are killed by it.
A French aeronaut has been con-
structing an air ship of 5000 yards
capacity, to be propelled by motor
made from aluminium.
THE WISCONSIN MOUNDS.
Scarcely anything in the range of
American antiquities, according to a
paper by DR.. Frederick Starr in the
Proceedings of the New York Acad-
envy of Sciences, has csused more
wonder and led to more discussion
than the animal mounds of Wiscon-
sin. Unlike many mounds in the
Ohio and Mississippi valley, these
were not sepulchral. They may
have been village guardians; perhaps
tribal totems marking territorial
limits; some may have been of use as
game drives; some may even served
as fetch helpers in the hunt, like
the prey gods of Zuni. They are
nearly confined to a belt of moderate
width stretching through Wisconsin
and overlapping into Minnesota and
Iowa. Within this area they occur
by hundreds. DR. Lapham pub
lished great work on the efigy
mounds in 1856, since which time
no one has paid SO much attention
to them as Stephen D. Peet whose
articles have lately been issued in
book form. Mr.. Peet has studied
the kinds of animals represented
the most satisfactorily identified
among many species seeming to be
the buffalo, moose and deer, or elk;
the panther, bear, wolf, and squirrel
the lizard and turtle; the eagle,
hawk, owl, goose, and crane; and
crane; and fishes. One or two man
mounds are, known, although most
of those so called are bird mounds.
Sometimes, too, "compos
wounds" are found, and the same
forms are found cut into the ground
instead of built above it. These
strange earth works are very skill
fully done, more or less in harmony
with their surroundings, and not
only numerous but of large size
including a man PA feet long,
beast 100 feet long with tail meas
uring 800 feet, and a hawk with
wings expanded 240 feet.
SCIENCE AND BUSINESS.
The loss to England of the great
coal-tar industry, which in its early
stages was particularly her own, is
attributed to the more thorough
and systematic scientific study of
the Germans and French. Sir F.
Abel states that Germany has great
works where chemical research is
carried on as an elaborate business,
and is pursued by men who have &C.
quired university degrees and dis
tinction, one establishment alone
having 40 trained chemits at work