The Opelousas courier., 1892-06-04
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

An average man breathes about co..
600 times in a day.
A process has recently been discovered
for making flour of banana.
When a belt gets saturated with waste
oil, an application of ground chalk will
soon absorb the oil and make the belt
workable.
A tricycle. to be propelled by electricity
and to run at the average speed of ten
miles an hour has heen patented at
Washington.
Bismuth melts at a point so far below
that of boiling water that it can be used
for taking casts from the most destruc.
tible objects.
Steel is now being used in the manu-
facture of fence posts. This is an inno-
walton on the old cedar method, and
promises to meet with extended use.
The Midland Railway in England has
now running between St. Pancras and
Bradford trial trains fitted with a hot
water apparatus, supplied from the en-
glne, for heating the carriages.
Electricity has now been put to many
uses, the very latest being the working
of a machine which it was said will
revolution1ze the art of stone carving.
The inventor is a Colorado man.
1t has been proposed to make the upper
half of war balloons of very thin steel,
and the lower portion Of ordinary bal
loon material, the whole SO constructed
as to hold hydrogen instead of ordinary
gas.
The descendants of a single wasp num-
Der as many as 10000 in one season:
| November is the fatal month which kills
them all off, except two or three females,
on whom depends the p~erpetuation of
the race.
No animal has more than five toes,
digits, or claws to each foot or limb.
The horse is one-toed. the OK two-toed,
the rhinoceros is three-toed, the hippo
potamus is four-toed, and the elephant
and hundreds of other animals are five.
toed.
Sheet. iron kites, to ensble a vessel
when in distress during a storm to COM
municate with the shore, have been sug-
gested. 1t would be a curious expert
ment. OF course, sheet-iron can be
made as thin or thinner than writing
paper.
In its wild state the elephant feeds
heartily, but wastefully. 1t is careful in
selecting the few forest trees which it
| likes for their bark or foliage. But 1t
| will tear down branches and leave half
of them untouched. 1t will strip off the
bark from other trees and throw away g
large portion.
Lettuce is a sleepy vegetable. It has
narcotic properties in the milky juice
that exudes when it is cut. The proper
ties of this fluid are analogous to those of
| opium, but without the latter's disagree
able after effects. The rapid growth of
lettuce in a-cold frame diminishes the
somnolent quality of its juice.
The hop vine is said to be sinistrorse
because it twines with the motion of the
sun, that is, from right to left. Beans,
morning glories and all other species of
climbing plants, with the exception of
one of the honeysuckles, are dextrorse,
turning opposite to the apparent motion
of the sun, or from lett to right.
After you have become tired of paying
a tool-maker to forge and grind up tools,
you will try to cast iron tools made out
of old car wheel iron and aluminium al
10y composite, in either a cupola or cruel
BILE furnace. They will take a greedy
bite and not get discouraged; and will
not require grinding SO often as steel
tools.