The Republican., 1893-05-11
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

seeds are often bleached by a process
| of dioxide of sulphur, which robs the
seed of per cent. of it's growing prop
critics.
The museum at Leyden contains
huge and almost perfect 4Epiornis egg,
bought from Frenchman for a thou
sand guilders, or about s4OO, something
less than third of the price paid not
long since for the egg of the great aux
sold at auction at Stevens rooms in
London.-N. Y. Independent.
"A man weighs less when the bar
ometer is high, Notwithstanding the
fact that the atmospheric pressure on
him is more than when the barometer
is low. AS the pressure of air on an
ordinary sized man is about fifteen
tons, the rise of the mercury from 30 to
81 inches adds about one ton to the
load he has to carry.
| Savannah has long been the lead
ing city in America in naval supplies,
and last year beat her own record.
| The receipts of rosin and turpentine at
that port for the twelve months ended
March Is were 1,274,9S7 barrels, an in
crease of 100000 barrels over the re-
| CclpIS VI IAc pTeNlOuS year HcS0
| figures have never been equaled at any
| port on this continent.-Atlanta Jour
| nal.
| The rubber industry is one of the
most profitable of this generation. Coll
lis =. Huntington once said that if he
We're young man with 800, 900 he
would go to Africa and engage in the
rubber business. why" said the rail-
road magnate, you can buy crude rub
Der on the Congo-away up in the in
terior-for a penny pound, and when
you get il down to the coast you can
sell it for nearly 100 times as much.
know of no better opening for young
men of grit and nerve"
| The complete statistics show that
the production of beet sugar in the
United States has more than doubled
during the past year, although there
has been no increase in the number of
factories. The total production of the
six factories was 27,0S3,322 pounds,
against total of 12,OS4, S3S pounds last
year. Experiments in growing sugar
beets have been tried in a number of
| the western states, and the success has
been so great that the number of fac
tories will be increased.
The least distance determined for
the fixed stars from the earth runs into
| billions of miles. Some notion of the
| reality may be derived from the fact
that if our sun were removed about
| 2O0,00O times its present distance from
the earth, it would appear to us simply
as a star of the first magnitude. The
..A. i
| IL, 200, 900, 900 of miles. 1t follows that
| If the nearest fixed star is further off
than this, as appears to be the fact,
every star of the first magnitude must
be larger or brighter than our sun.
The orbit of the planet Neptune,
| thirty times further from the sun than
| that of the earth, forms the outer
boundary of the solar system. The
distance is immense, yet shrinks into
insigniticance when compared with
| that which lies beyond. So vast is the
gulf which intervenes between our
earth and the stellar universe that, al
| though many of the stars are in all
probability larger and brighter than
our sun, yet the most powerful tele-
| scope is not able to give them any ap-
| preciable diameter, mere point of
| light being all that is visible.
The promise made by Nine. Schlie-
| mann after the death of her dis
| tinguished husband in 1890, that the
excavations of Troy would be con-
tinued is about to be fulfilled. Arrange
ments have been made to begin the
| work again next month under the
direction of Professor Doerpfeld, the
| first secretary of the German Archeo-
| logical institute of Athens. Nine.
Schlemann herself will spend consider
able time on the field of operations.
Professor Doerpfeld under her direc-
tions and his assistants will welcome
| visitors to the place who wish to in
vestigate the progress Of the work and
see personally the interesting sights.
In no country do English mining
Investments appear to such advantage
| as in the Witwatersrand South Africa.
From figures recently published it is
learned that the twenty-four principal
companies, having an issued capital of
f7,243,672, paid dividends in 1892
amounting to e791 ,04S, or at the rate of
1919 per cent. upon issued capital. Ac-
cording to the market quotations of
the stocks of these companies on jan
uary /, 1898, the properties were worth
s12 $50, 900, which would reduce the
dividend rate to 6. 90 per cent, but even
so the showing is good one. OF the
twenty-four companies mentioned
eight. representing an issued capital of
92 ,647 900 and an actual quoted value
of e3, 47O, 900, paid no dividends at all,
consequently the dididends paid were
at the rate of 17-2 per cent on the
issued capital of the dividend paying
companies and at the rate of s.3 per
cent. on their quoted value.-Engineer-
ing and Mining journal.
M. Lepirre, French artist, states
that in demonstrating that sulphur
melted at about lis degrees can be
cooled in paper, he happened to use a
Autographed card, OF which the edges
were turned up Upon taking away
the card it was discovered that the
autographed characters were clearly
and distinctly impressed upon the
cooled surface of the sulphur. remain
inU thnS a flor hard friction and wash