The Opelousas courier., 1891-09-19
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.
Marmoreine hardens plaster.

Electricity is to re~yolutionize mining.
Many of the big paper-mills have
turned out paper belts said to be supe.
rior to leather.
The juice of a half lemon in a teacup
of strong black coffee, without sugar,
will often cure a sick headache.
The skin of a boiled egg Is the best
remedy for a boil Carefully peel it,
wet, and apply to the boil; it draws out
the matter and relieves soreness.
When your face and ears burn SO ter
ribly battle them in very hot water-as
hot as you can bear it. This will be
more apt to cool them than any cold ap.
plication.
The c~ompounding of locomotives will
soon be gone into on a large scale, and
triple expansion engines will SOC be
adopted in the larger manufacturing es-
adjustments.
The breaking weight of a bar of iron
one foot long and one inch square is
5781 pounds. A piece Of seasoned hick-
ory of the same dimensions would break
at $40 pounds.
A Philadelphia company recently
made a fy-wheel which weighs 1So, 900
tons. 1t is twenty-five feet in diameter,
eighteen inches thick, and tweaty-eight
inches wide. 1t will be operated by a
5000 horse power.
Borers of the city arteslan we'll at
Fort Worth, Texas, are of the opinion
that the drill will soon penetrate a huge
volume of boiling water, as the tempera-
ture increases with every few feet they
go down, and at last accounts was III
degrees, at a depth of 1900 feet.
Chatin has proved that a parasite
growing on plants of the strychnos
genus contains neither strychnine nor
brucine. The mistletoe growing upon
the oak does MT contain the blue tannin
of the latter, but exclusively a green
tannln. In like manner other parasites
are shown not to absorb the peculiar
principles of their hosts.
Neuralgia in the face has been cured
by applying a mustard plaster to the
elbow. For neuralgia in the head, apply
the plaster to the back Of the neck.
The reason for this is that mustard is
said to touch the nerves the moment it
begins to draw or burn, aad to be OF
most use must be applied to the nerve
centres, ofAdirectly over the place where
it will touch the affected nerve most
quickly.
Sarno, a German chemist, finds nitric
acid abundant in annual plants, and more
or less in nearly all families of plants.
A singular observance is fiat where
plants formerly supposed to root-par-
a~sites, and now called sapra1hytes, are
connected with certain bush roots. Suca
roots have no nitric acid. For instance,
the cancer root is only found under
beech trees, aud yet no connection exists
between the beech and this plant. These
roots ought not to have any nitric acid,
if Sarno is right.
For many years a spring of dirty
water ran from the house of a certain NJ.
K%orotneff, in the heart of Sebastopoi,
and caused the proprietor much trouble.
At times the spring would cover the best
street in the city with mud. OF late the
spring has become a public nuisance and
the city authorities compelled NJ. Korot-
nefft to build a s7nallreseryofr around it and
lead off the muddy substance by sewer
pipes. But as soon as this was done ii
was discovered that the substance n the
new reservoir was pure naphtha. Fo
the last three months since the discovery
was made nothing has been done to util.
ize this wasting treasure.