Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1892-12-02
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.


A door-closer is operated by gravity.
A machine Is made for growing horse
shoes.
Flowing by electricity is in contempla-
tion for large property in Spain.
At the present time the average height
of the tides the world over is only about
three feet.
An incorrodible metal, which is like.
wise very hard, is made by amaIgamating
nickel with steel.
A French chemist has succeeded in
making imitation diamonds that cost
more than the genuine.
1t is believed that diphtheria is some
times contracted by little children while
playing near the sewers when the latter
ere open for repairs or other purposes.
The use of minute quantities of chro-
MUM in steel to give it exceptional hard
ness was probably first carried out on
commercial scale by Julius Bauer, of New
York.
The life of locomotive crank pin,
which is almost the FIRST thing about an
engine to wear out, is go, 600 miles, and
the life of a thirty -three-inch wheel is
66,733 miles.
A California company makes splendid
article of toilet soap from the froth
skinned from boiling compound. 1t
is supposed to be mixture of borax,
alkai and mineral oil.
At Baku, Russia, there is an immense
oil we'll that ''ebbs and flows" with the
same regularity as do the ocean tides.
1t is believed to have some mysterious
connection with the sea.
The lower grade of molasses sells for
such poor price (two cents a gallon),
that some of tho Louisiana sugar houses
use it for fuel. Several of the Cuban
sugar houses thus use It.
Sir John Lubbock, who probably
knows more about bees than any other
man In the world, living or dead,
says that there is strong evidence that
the queen bee has the power of control
ing the sex OF the egg.
1t appears that colored or dark pig.
ment in the olfactory region Is essential
to perfect smell. In cases where ami
mails are pure white they are usually
totally devoid of both smell and taste,
and some, the white cat for instance,
are almost invariably deaf.
A Boston dentist advocated hypnotism
as local an@sthetic in a paper read be-
fore the New England Dental Society
and hYpnotized patient there and then
as an object lesson in the practice, per-
forming a dental cutting without elicit
ing from the patient any manifestation
of feeling. The paper was unaccom-
panied by drawings.
The gall of gall.fiy produced on an
oak attracts, states DR.. Rathay, by their
viscid secretion, number of small ants,
which he believes to be advantageous to
the tree in killing quantities of caterpil-
lars and other insects which are its
natural enemies. He illustrates the
value of this protection by the statement
that the inhabitants of a single ants nest
may destroy in a single day upward of
100, 900 insects.
It is found that masonry may be rem
dered impervious to water, especially in
positions exposed to direct contac. to
that element, by the application of coal
tar. The latter is employed in boiling
state, in one or more layers, or it may
be made to flame up before being used,
the first being suitable for surfaces ex-
posed to the air, while the second is ap-
propriate in the case of parts intended
to be covered up. This method of treat
ing foundations is declared to be of
special utility IN all public buildings,
particularly those designed for the pres
ervation of works of art, preventing as it
does exudations of water charged with
lime salts from the mortar.