The Opelousas courier., 1892-02-06
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

Boston, Mass, has the largest fly
wheel.
Tiny incandescent lights are now made
for surgical uses.
Electric welding has been applied to
10 the manufacture of projectiles for
light guns.
Two Maine women have discovered an
acid that bleeches wood pulp designed
to used in the manufacture of paper.
The Calumet and Hecla Works have
a smelling works in Buffalo, N. Y, the
capacity of which will be $50 tons
per month.
When you are floating through ice
fields in the ocean you go very slowly.
The Jeanette drifted through the Arctic
Ocean at the rate of two miles a day.
The wear upon Cape Cod, Mass,
coast is shown to be at the rate of 1885,
756 cubic yards per year, or an annual
wear of the coast equal to a distance OF
about eight feet.
G. W. Dunn, the California naturalist,
has collected over 70, 900 insets belong
ing to the horn-winged family, 5000 of
the cricket tribe and about 1000 but
t~eriies, and numerous rare plants and
annals.
A rack railway seven miles in length
il under construction on the Usni Mount
ain, japan, to connect the terminl of
the State railway at Yokohama and
Karnisawa. There are twenty one tun-
nels, 1920 feet in length in all, along
the line, and the steepest grade is one
to fifteen.
A recent improvement in making
barrels consists in making each alternate
stave OF soft wood and somewat thicker
than the others. When the slaves are
put together and the hoops driven down,
the hardwood slaves are thus crowded
into their softer neighbor, making a
tight joint.
A new saddle has series of spring con-
Meeting the upper saddle-tree, or seat,
with the lower, to relieve the rider from
constant jolting. The springs are cone
shape, working within each other, are
of tempered steel, so as to work freely
wherever the motion of the horse may
bring the weight Of the rider.
The hair that is taken from hides at
tanneries has found a new use. Formerly
this hair was OF little value. By a new
process it is taken from the hide by a
machine which at the same time ~cleanses
it, aud it is then baled and sent to the
factory, where it is utilized in making
cloth "all wool' and a yard wide.
A sixty-seven-ton gun on board the
British armored vessel Howe has de-
veloped a defect in the inner tube similar
to that recently found in n of the big
guns of the English ironelad Arson, the
flagship of the Channel Squadron. The
Admiralty is greatly exercised over the
repeated discoveries of defects in British
guns.
The absolute conversion of tar into
gas can now be elected without leaving
any residue in a retort. The process
consists in injecting a spray of tar by
means of a Korting jet supplied with
~superheated steam into a red-hot retort
half filed with coke. The gas has a high
caudIe-power and does not need the ust
of expensive enriching material.
The injury of metallic sleepers from
corrosion has been greatly overrated.
Even in the damp climate of the Neither
lands the loss from eorrosion does not,
it is said, exceed four per cent. in twenty
years. Experience in India shows tina
metallic sleepers which are subjected tt
! a special treatment before leaving the
works are thoroughly to be relied on TO
. efficiency and lasting wear.
E The new artificial q~uinine produced b.
I Messrs. Grimaux aud Arnaud, of Paris
is mentioned as one of the greatest dis
coveries of the year. It is obtained b,
/ treating the base cuprein of a Brazilia
5 shrub with sodium, then treating the re
l sulting compound with chloride {
a methyl. The product is quinine abse
' lutely identical with the substance ths
! has become so familiar and SO indis
a pensable.