The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1892-11-10
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

the coal mines of the world. OF these
England has 535, 900; United States, 800,
900; Germany, 2s5, 600; Belgium, 100, 900;
Russia, A, 900. The worlds miners of
metal number 4, 900, 900.
Cocaine sometimes kills. This fact
was forcibly demonstrated in the case of
Benjamin NJ. Noe at Bellevue hospital,
New York, recently. Death came al
most as soon as the drug was admin
istered and the doctors do not doubt
that cocaine was the fatal agent.
"A French technical journal recon-
mends the use of coal tar for water
proofing masonry. A small amount of
India rubber dissolved by benzine will
increase its durability. 1t should be
applied boiling hot, and if the color
should be Objectionable it can be busted
with plaster of paris before drying.
1t was lately quoted in British ship
ping circles as proof of the depression
affecting the shipping trade that a
splendid four-masted iron bark of 1000
tons register, owned on the Clyde, came
into port from Australia in ballast, was
unable to get a cargo, and sailed back
for the antipodes again with the same
ballast she brought with her.
The whale industry was taken up
early by the New England colonies.
and at first the fishery was prosecuted
by boats from the shore In the first
part of the eighteenth century, how
ever, the whales had been driven off
and vessels were now fitted out for their
pursuit from Nantucket, Cape Cod,
Martha's Vineyard and New Bedford. In
1854 the traffic reached its elimination.
Clouds continue to form around
storms in a continuous sheet, thickest
near the center of the storm, and thin
nest and highest at it's outer limits
The temperature is high in front of
storms and low in their rear. The first
indication of an approaching storm are
the finely drawn out fbrous clouds,
which may be one hundred miles in ad-
vance of the storm.
"A correspondent of Nature gives
the following interesting facts relating
to the strength possessed by certain
animals The shell-less limpet pulls
1884 times its own weight when in the
air, and about double when immersed
in water Fasting fleas on an average
pull l, 493 times their own dead weight,
while the Mediterranean cookie, Venus
verrucosa, can exert a pulling power
to 2,071 times the weight of its own
body. So great is the power possessed
by the oyster that to open it force
equal to 1898 times the weight of it's
shell-less body is required
"A ray of light moves with such
amazing velocity that it might wrap
itself eight times round the earth be-
tween five ticks of the clock, and yet
it would take that ray of light fifty
years to come from the North star to
this earth. When we look at that stead
fast, unchanging star at night we see it
in the light that left it half century
ago; and if the Omnipotent hand that
formed it, set it in its place and called it
by name should suddenly destroy it, we
would continue to see it in it's own light
fifty years after it had ceased to exist.
Some silk worms lay from 1000 to
1000 eggs, the wasp 5000, the ant from
5000 to 5000 The number of eggs laid
by the queen bee has long been in dis
pute. Burmeister says from 5000 to
5000, but Spence and Kirby both go him
several better, each declaring that the
queen of average fertility will lay no
less than 10000 and probably as high as
SO, 900 in one season. Termes fatalis,
the white ant, is possessed of the most
extraordinary egg-laying propensities
of any known creature; she often pro-
duces SO, 400 eggs in single day. From
the time when the white ant begins to
lay until the egg-laying season is over
usually reckoned by entomologists as
an exact lunar month-she produces
$500, 600 eggs. In point of fecundity
the white ant exceeds all other crea-
lures
One of the difficult problems that
architects have to consider in erecting
very high buildings is wind bracing.
The variation of practice is wide show
ing that ideas differ in regard to details
and the amount and operation of forces
to be resisted. In designing metal struc-
lures engineers agree substantially, the
greatest differences being in regard to
the use of cast iron and the relative
merits of hollow tile walls and of iron
or steel rods as vertical bracing. 1t is
said that some architects depend wholly
on ordinary partitions for lateral sta
bility. no matter how much they may
be weakened by openings. 1t is all
right to have the exterior walls a mere
exterior curtain to shield the interior
metal frame, but the frame should be
braced efficiently. Vibrations due to
cars, trucks and dynamos have to be
considered also