The Bossier banner., 1892-08-18
SCIENCE ANp INDUSTRY.

62G animals slaughtered, as compared
with Il ,142, $50 in 1890: Nearly 1000 ami
mails were seized as unfit for food. and,
while there was decrease in the con-
sumption of beef, mutton and veal,
there was an increase of $4,000 in the
number of hogs killed.
"A curious and profitable business
has grown up in the Maine woods about
the sawmills, in the utilizing of the inn
mense quantities of sawdust by COM
preston. Thousands of tons of sawdust
are pressed into compact blocks and
bales, and In this form is finding a
ready market for kindling and fuel In
The eastern cities.--N. Y. SUN.
After the short American potato
crop of 1890, there were shipped to the
United States from abroad 5,363;707
bushels in 1891, of which Canada and
her dependencies shipped 3,947,S16
bushels, Great Britain and Ireland
1,303,60 British West Indies 76,376,
Germany 41,s39, and Cuba 22,34S
bushels
AT the Hyde Park meeting of do
mestic servants, male and female, con-
vened by the London Domestic Serv-
ants union, the secretary gave the esti-
mate that there were 10000 domestic
servants walking about the streets un-
employed. The last eensds returns
f3, 900 coachmen and grooms, $4,000
male domestic servants indoors, and
1880, 900 female domestic servants, or
1859, 600 In ali.
i'm the West Indian island of New
Providence there is new and impor-
tant industry in the cultivation of sisal
grass, which is equal to Manila hemp
for making rope and twine. The fiber
plant, which was formerly Regarded as
a noxious weed, requires four years to
reach maturity, and tens of thousands
of acres of land of New Providence are
now devoted to it's growth. The first
big shipment of it will be made to this
country this year.
Prof Charles d. Walcott of the
United States geological survey intends
to have at the worlds fair an exhibit
which will illustrate section of the
earth's crust by specimens of the rock
strata placed in their proper relative
positions, and by collections of the char
acteristie fossils shown In connection
with the formations in which they are
found. -
"A comparative anatomist says that
the little toe has got to go, that it is use
less appendage already shOwings signs
of degeneration or whitening away. 1t
is proved that the horse in the course of
several centuries has dropped four toes
and now travels ON one, and some think
that mans pedal extremities are bound
to follow a similar line of evolution. In
the horse it is the middle digit which
has survived as the fittest. In man it
will be the first or great big toe.
From a recent issue of the Chicago
Tribune we learn that the Illinois Cen
trail Railroad Company believes it has at
last found an engine that will run
without smoke The smokelessness is
due to the fact that it will successfully
burn anthracite coal. The engine whose
construction will admit of this novelty
in coal consumption is a monster of its
kind. 1t has just been built at the Bald
win Locomotive Works; it has made a
mile in forty-seven seconds; its weight
on the drivers is 1000 pounds, and its
total weight when fully furnished and
in running order is estimated al 1000
pounds-N. o. Times Democrat.
"A beam of sunlight is made to pass
through prism so as to produce the
solar spectrum or rainbow. A disk,
having Sits or openings in it, is made to
1sr~1,k -
the rainbow is made to break
through it and fall on the silk,
wood or other material in glass vessel.
AS the colored light falls upon it sounds
will be given by tho different parts OF
the spectrum, and there will be silence
in other parts. If the vessel contains
red worsted and the green light flashes
upon it loud sounds will be given. Only
feeble sounds will be heard when the
blue parts of the rainbow fall upon the
vessel.
Prof. Marshall, of England, tells us
that the oak, in general way, requires
to grow from one hundred and twenty
to.two hundred years before it is fit to
cut for large timber. Left alone it may
live for one thousand years, but the pro
portion of good timber in trees after a
certain age rapidly diminishes. There
are many trees still standing in England
which are from eight hundred to one
thousand years of age, perhaps the best
specimens being those in various part:
| of what was once Sherwood Forest. The
| oak rarely bears fruit at all before it i:
fifty to sixty years old, and seventy tG
| eighty years is a more general age.
| A Railroad Trip to Cape Horn.