The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1893-12-09
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.


The 'goober'' industry of Norfolk
Is unique. Here is a little city in Vir-
ginia that has become the greatest dis
tributing center of peanuts in the
world. A peanut is pretty small
item, but an annual crop of something
like 5000, 900 bushels, worth millions of
dollars, makes pretty big item.
Despite losses through the big
wind storms, Delaware's peach crop
this year was the biggest in the his
tory of the peninsula. The various es-
Inmates place it at from 5000, 900 to
to 100000 baskets The railroad
alone carried s, $50 car loads of peaches,
and over third of the crop is usually
shipped by water.
"A stratum of soil in eastern Ne
braska has recently been discovered
which is made up largely from volcanic
dust 1t is about eighteen inches deep
and of whitish aspect. This is reported
from the vicinity of Omaha, and is
farther east than the similar and better
known deposits elsewhere in the same
state. Unlike the other layers, how
ever, this one contains oxides of iron
and carbonate of lime.
Alcohol, although the most con-
venient heretofore found, has proved
an unreliable fluid for loNv-temperature
thermometers. 1t is subject to the
three vices of sticking to the tube, ir-
regular expansion and defect from inn
purities and variations in water con-
tent, which affect its expansion mater
tally. M. Chappuis has found toluol,
the boiling point of which is ITO degrees
c., liquid well adapted to the purpose
and free from these disadvantages.
The biologists tell us that the oro-
bippus, the ancestor of the noble horse
of to-day, was but little larger than the
common rabbit of to-day, and that each
had sixteen toes, four on each foot, the
same as the cattle of to-day. After the
lapse of ages this sixteen-hoofed equus
shed toe or hoof from each foot and
thus became twelve-toed animal The
sixteen-hoofed variety are first found
in the eocene period of geological
epochs.
"A German scientific weekly pro-
posed the riddle: s'Do water wheels
|
time-and why?" Correspondenceg grew
up around this subject, multiplied
reasons, upset them, distorted them,
restated them, and finally brought the
question into so much prominence that
it became migrated into the columns
of a French rival across the border.
Then the process began again. At last
some one asks: "Why not look at
water wheel and see if it is true?''
There are many misconceptions
about aluminium that are widespread
and which it seems difficult to correct
in the public mind. Aluminium is not,
section by section, a very strong metal
1t is only one-half as strong as wrought
iron. 1t he's very low elastic limit
1t is not rigid, but bends under a
transverse strain readily. 1t is in its
alloys that its utility commences to APP
pear. With to 10 per cent of copper,
or aluminium bronze. we have one of
the most dense, finest grained and
strongest metals known.
The most interesting of all moons
are the two that attend Mars, each
about sixty miles in diameter. That
/ planet is just one-hah the size of the
earth; its surface is divided into conti-
nents and seas, having as much land as
water; it has an atmosphere, clouds
frequently concealiug its face, and its
seasons are about the same as here,
though the winters are colder. Be
/ cause one of the moons travels around
1t three times as fast as Mars itself
turns, it appears to rise in the west
and set in the east, while the other,
really clrcling in the same direction at
speed comparatively slow, rises in
the east and sets in the west Thus
both moons are seen in the heavens at
the same time, going in opposite direc-
tions.
The reason that the mixture of
tungsten with steel gives the latter so
great degree of hardness that it
readily scratches glass and quartz
seems to be revealed by a discovery
recently made in Germany. A def
nitely crystalized compound of iron and
tungsten has been discovered, the crys-
tails being SO hard as to scratch topaz.
Tungsten is a brittle white metal, al
most as heavy as gold. The crystals
are formed by its combination with
iron in the proportion of one atom Of
iron to two of tuna sten, are silver-gray
and very brilliant 1t is thought that
when tungsten is alloyed with steel
some of the compound just described
is formed in the mass, thereby produc-
ing the remarkable increase in hard
ness of the steel. This is an interest
ing example of the value that one
metal may lend to another. for until
the discovery that it could be used in
hardening steel tungsten, although it
occurs in considerable abundance,
was practically useless and without
value.
Curious Occupations of HIndoos.