Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1892-03-25
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

France now produces incombustible
shoes.
There are twenty thousand different
kinds of butterfly.
Animal life ceases to exist IN the ocean
at depth of one and a half miles.
Fifty ono metals are now known to
exist. Four hundred years ago only
scyca were known.
There is talk Of putting a feet OF cleo
trically propelled launches on the Ia
eoous a. the Chicago Worlds Fair.
1t has been found that milk can be
thoroughly stcriized by heating it to
te nperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
A recent improvement in making
water conduts consists in imbedding
wire netting in the cement used. The
piping thus made is greatly strength
ened.
J. J. Mcdonnell, Day Chief Operator
in the Western Union Telegraph office at
Tacoma, Washington, has developed a
sextuple system of telegraphy and ap'
piled for a patent on it.
Frederick Schwatka, who once ex-
pereuced temperature of seventy-one
degrees below zero in the Arctic regions,
is said to be the only civilized being
who ever endured such cold.
The Dead Sea loses every day by evap-
grafton several million tons of water.
This enormous mass is easily drawn up
by the rays of the SUI, the valley wherein
the sea lies being one Of the hottest upon
the globe.
The skeleton of a whale, over 100
feet long, has been discovered buried in
the sands on the shore of Baranhoff
Island, off Alaska, far above the high
tide mark It's supposed to have been
there hundreds of years.
Pipes of cement, in which wire net
ting is imbedded, are now manufactured
in Berlin, Germany. The wire netting
is said to greatly increase the strength of
the pipes against bursting, so that they
are well adapted for water conduits.
Recent experiments show that the per-
manency OF the power in magnets IS
greatly increased by heating them in
steam ard remagnetizing them. When
this has been done several times the
magnet will suffer very little from heat.
When Portland cement is mixed with
water and used in atmosphere below the
fieezing point it will set, but rapidly
disintegrates. 1t has recently been
found that the mixing of a small amount
of caustic soda will overcome this diff
Guilty.
To say that Venus and Jupiter recently
came in conjunction is figure ofspeech,
by which is meant that Venus, in running
her orbit, swings into the line of sight
from the earth to Jupiter. Jupiter IS
really 1400 times as large as Venus, and
their distance apart is more than 4OO,-
900, 200 miles.
A French physician is authority for the
statement that the regular tramp of
marching soldiers is much more harmful
to brain and body than the less regular
walk of the ordinary pedestrian. Ac-
cording to the scientist, walking ten
miles in line is as exhaustive as walking
twenty at a go-as-you-please gait.
A novelty in the line OF building ma
terial comes from Germany, where a
firm has perfected means by which
sawdust is mixed with an acid and the
whole is then pressed into the required
shapes. The process makes the material
non -combustible. 1t is lighter than iron
or steel and stronger than wood, being
also very cheap.
A Montana mau has invented ranch
snow plow, to be used in scraping the
snow off the ranges so that the cattle can
get at tue g,ass. 1t is reported that the
machine works very satisfactorily. Thou
sands Of cattle perish every year, and the
number this year was more than usually
large from starvation, on account OF the
deep SHOWS cutting of the food supply.
Electric heating is now attracting great
attention, due in part to the success
which has lately been made in street car
work, but more particularly to the in-
crease in the possibilities of obtaining
current at a reasonable figure. The
strides made in the transmission OF power
froma cheap source has opened up very
wide field for this branch of the electric
art.
Miss E.eanor Oneroed is the most dis.
tinguished entcmoloyist of England
Her first object in taking up the science,
it is stated, was to save the farmers
grain from destruction, and, in order to
render herself familiar with the habits OF
insect life, she often spends hours
stretched upon the ground studying
them. She has been appointed Consult
ing Entomologist to the Royal British
Agricultural Society.