Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1892-04-08
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.


Parsley is poisonous to many kinds of
birds.
There are 365 electric roads in this
country.
Only nine per cent. of all operations in
amputations are fatal.
Conch shells, when ground, enter into
the manufacture of porcelain.
Electricity is to be applied to the flour
milling interests in st. Paul, MINI.
Ammonia as motive power is coming
into use on various street car lines.
Frances latest torpedo boat made
twenty-three knots and half in bad
sea.
Good peat in Germany furnishes eel :
lulose which is valuable to paper
makers.
The phonograph is now used in hospi-
tails for the purpose of studying the
auditory characteristics of pulmonary dis
ease.
TIE Liverpool (England) Elevated
Railway will be worked by electricity,
using motor cars instead of separate
locomotives.
An Antwerp (Belgium) inventor has
patented a system of ventilation by COM
pressed air, for use in the holds aud
cabins of vessels.
A recent English invention is screw
propeller in which the blades can be ad
justed fer maneuvering or can be
feathered for running under sail.
Four tons of grapes to tho acre are
said to take from the soil three pounds
of nitrogen, twelve pounds of phos-
phoric acid and forty pounds OF
potash.
In calming the ocean by means of oil,
it has been found that petroleum and
mineral oils in general are indequate for
the purpose, and tnat train oil is the
most effective.
The heaviest freight locomotives built
nowadays weigh 115, 900 pounds and
their tenders loaded weigh $4,000
pounds. Passenger coaches weigh 50,-
600 pounds and the palatial Pullmars
run up to $4,000.
DR.. Valentino, of Konigsberg, Prussia,
who has met with phenomenal success in
the treatment of typhoid fever, gives his
patients all the water, milk, ETC., they can
drink. He says the fluids eliminate the
poisons in the system.
The first ingot of nickle steel to be
used for the manufacture of armor for
the United States Navy '1as cast in mold
weighing tifty-six tons. The ingot
weighed 10000 pounds. This armor
plate will be used on the Maine.
Asnake moves by means of the ribs and
the scales on the abdomen, to which each
rib is attached by a set of short muscles.
These scales take hold of the surface
over which the serpent may be passing,
and in that manner aid the creature to
glide. often very rapidly, around the
trunks of trees and along the smaller
branches.
Machinery is now made for the manu-
facture of all kinds of casks and tubs, so
that no handwork is required. Flour
barrels are made in this way for six cents
each, and other kinds in proportion. If
butter firkins sell for forty cents each,
it seems as if the business of making
them. where lumber is cheap, might be
profitable, if the cost of shipment was
paid by the purchaser.
A Norwegian farmer has Invented q
curious lock in which the bolt is released
by stroke from pendulum bob. The
pendulum, invisible from the outside, is
moved sufficiently by blowing sharply
several times through a hole in the door,
but the putfs of air can be given at the
proper time only by swinging key pen
dulum, previously adjusted, to vibrate in
unison with the lock pendulum.
Air plows, Vshaped contrivances, to
be placed on the front of engines of fast
express trains, are the latest scheme to
get more speed by overcoming much of
the natural resistance of the air to the
front of the locomotive. The plow ex-
tends from few inches above the track
to the top of the smokestack, the sharp
edge, of course, in front. "Shoveling
fog" is common expression among rail
road men, but piowing wind is new
thing in railroad agriculture.