The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1891-04-09
THE WORLD OF SCIENCE.

Siam is to have u 100000 electric
railway thirty miles long.
Mr.. Willard will spend $1,000, 900 in
transforming the street-car lines in
Milwaukee SO they can run by cleo
tricity.
A Hoosier inventive genius has re-
Gently patented q voting booth that can
be folded up into the smallest possible
space for transportation.
Statistics show that about IS per
cent. of all railway accidents ia the
United States arising from derailments
are caused by defective frogs and
switches.
The manufacture of aluminium is
slowly coming down to a practical COM
ton Company turns out 5000 pounds o
week, and sells it for 81 pound. The
Company is behind it's orders, and is
increasing its plant.
A lasting machine that enables one
operator to last 5000 pairs of shoes a
week is one of the latest things in
labor-saving machinery. 1t tackles
anything from light feminine foot-gear
to the heaviest brogans, and the pro-
duct is superior to hand work.
Ship railway projectors have been
figuring on a route from Lake Huron
to Lake Ontario, which if operated
would cut out 1873 miles of lake navi-
CATION and Is miles of canal between
Chicago and Montreal. The railway
would be 50 miles long and the esti-
mated cost $12, 900, 600.
If cloth can be made out of fine spun
glass. it would seem a simple matter
to make it out of wood, and this is
done by boiling strips of fine grained
timber, crushing them between rolls,
caring the tilaments into parallel
lines, as with ordinary textile material.
and spinning them into threads from
which cloth can be woven in the usual
way.
Electricity has not been practically
applied in the art of music heretofore,
except, perhaps, in the operating
mechanism of church organs, George
Breed, of the United States Navy, has
devised a method by which the passage
of broken current over a conductor
III uSIu INACS va
varying pitch and volume.
Modern methods are changing con-
tinually towards simplicity and rapid
ity in the smallest things. The Penn
sylvania Railroad has introduced the
measurement of oil by weight in its
supply department. An odd number
of quarts can he run off more quickly
by weight than by ladling. OIL aver
ages about seven pounds to the gallon.
Fireproof construction of buildings
Is slowly growing more and more of an
exact science. Species of porous terra
Gotta filling is rapidly coming into use.
Sixty thousand dollars worth of it was
recently put into one building in Chi
cago. Experts say, however, that as far
as fire proof floors are concerned al
ternate layers of plank and cement
form the most impeuetrable of con-
structionS.
Systems for distributing power in
cities from a central station are com.
ing more into use every day. Steam,
electricity aud compressed air are the
common agents, but Paris has system
which is the reverse of that employing
compressed air. The motors operate
by n vacuum created by immense air
pumps at the central station. The cost
per horse power per hour is 20 cents,
about the same as with the ordinary
gas engine when illuminating gas is
used.
The track mileage of street railways
| in the five leadin. cities of the United
States is: New York, 368. Chicago,
865; Boston. 329; Brooklyn. 324; Phila.
deIphia. 324. Tbe mileage of different
motive powers is: For horses. 1851;
electric. city. 2G0; cable. 255; steam,
elevated, 81 surface. 22l. Three cities
have elevated roads New York. 81
miles; Brooklyn. "a miles, and Kansas
City. 5 miles. Baltimore uses nottiu q
but horse power motors, and Scranton
has none but electric roads.