The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-05-05

Chinese Governments, and the others
to private companies-mostly British.
M. Olszewski has found that LIQUID
oxygen, instead of being coOrless, has
a bright blue color. He concludes that
the blue of the sky may be due to the
airs oxygen.
Boots with stone soles, which are
said to be very flexible and almost in
destructible, are the idea of a German
inventor. A thin leather sole is used,
a paste of quartz sand and waterproof
glue being spread on it.
The new commercial museum at
Rome will include apermanent exhibit
ton of national products and of such
foreign products as may be used in
Italy. It's purpose is also to make
foreign products known throughout
Italy, and Italian products in all other
countries.
EARTH ODOR.-Two French chemists,
Messrs. Berthelot and Andre, have in
vestigated the cause of the powerful
odor that rises from vegetable mould
after a fall of rain. They find the
essential principle to be an organic
compound of the aromatic family. It's
odor is very penetrating, and analogous
to that of the camphors; its proportion
in mould is only a few millionths, but
one three-millionth of a gram is suH-
Gent to produce a sensible smell.
GAS CooKING.-Gas is becoming very
popular in Brussels for cooking pur-
poses. The price has been greatly re-
duced since the introduction of electric
lighting, and the gas companies sup
ply special stoves at an annual rental
Of about ten per cent. of their total
value. Many different kinds of gas
stoves have been invented. Monthly
lectures on the use Of gas as fuel are
given, with weekly lessons in cooking
by NEAR of gas stoves. Cooking by
gas has important advantages for hot
weather.
BIOLOGICAL BOUNDARIES Natural
lists recognize a certain number of what
we might call geological centres Of
population, says DR.. F. L. Oswald, and
it seems strange how completely a mar
row marine channel has often pre-
vented the four-footed natives of such
regions from .colOnizing a neighboring
continent. Asia, for instance, at one
point almost touches the archipelago
of the Sunda Islands, which seem to
form a series of stepping-stones to the
Australian mainland, yet the zoologi-
cal contrast between Labrador and
Brazil is not greater than that between
Hindostan and Australia. From such
centres of distribution as Burmah and
Bengal a hundred different mammals
have spread north and west, but only
three of them, a wild dog and two
species of rodents, succeeded in making
their way to the land of the kangaroo.
THE EARTH's UNSTEADINEss.-It has
been pointed out that the shifting of
masses of air and water may explain
the recently observed changes in the
earth's axis of rotation. A German
physicist, Herr Lamp, notes the dis
placement northward of the maxima
Of air-pressure in the trade-wind region,
and of ocean currents, as the sun rises
in summer; and that the water passes
back to the southern hemisphere as
our winter approaches. 1t is calcu-
lated that the change observed in the
latitude of Berlin about 5 seconds
would be brought about NY the move
ment of $500 cubic metres of water
from 80 degrees south latitude to 35
degrees north latitude, producing a
rise in sea-level of only 4 inches. The
/ reality of the oscillation of the axis il
Ito be tested in different parts of the
Notwithstanding the South Paciic-by
further observations, and the results
will be awaited everywhere with great
interest.
A WEALTH-SAvNG CoNCEPTIoN.-A
most extraordinary discovery is that
| claimed by M. o. deClausen, a Russian
engineer, who has been experimenting
in London with a new stove. Finding
that much free oxygen escapes with
the unburned fuel from chimneys, this
experimenter concluded that, contrary
to ordinary theory, less draft and
higher temperature are needed in order
to get perfect combustion. He secures
these in a stove three feet high by one
foot In diameter, lined with fire brick.
Only the lower portion of the coil
burns, a very small current of air be-
ing admitted to this, and passing up
ward sufficiently hot to cause its re-