The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1893-03-23
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.
The expenditure of the South Aus.
tralian government in connection with
Its woods and forests. agricultural bu
reau and agricultural college depart
ments, for theyear ending June 20, 1892,
amounted in the aggregate to SIS, ZOO.
Mexico shipped nearly $4,000 boxes
of oranges, worth Is 900, to the United
States between November 81, 1891, and
April 80, 1892. This was IS per cent
more than during the previous season,
and the average price was 1Ocents per
box higher
There are seventy-eight butter and
cheese factories in New Zealand. Farm
ers receive about 6 cents a gallon for
milk, and the butter is forwarded to
England: The freight charge for the
entire distance of $4,000 miles is about
8 cents pound. q" >. !
by the recent discovery of a fossil
hemipterous insect in the upper beds of
the Lower Silurian formation OF Scania,
in Sweden, the horizon of insect life is
lowered very considerably. Heretofore
the honor of being the most ancient of
insects has been ascribed to the cock
roach, one having occurred in the Upper
Silurian of France.
Calculations, based on the observa-
ton of the refraction of light, have
cansed It to be supposed that the air
becomes so rare at the height of about
sixty miles that the distance may be
regarded as the limit to its sensible ex-
tent, but other calculations made during
the present century, of the distance of
the earth 1T which meteors ignite, indi-
cate that the atmosphere extends up
wards Of one hundred miles.
The largest vessel yet built on the
Weir in England, and said to be the
greatest cargo vessel in the world, was
successfully launched last month This
vessel, which is built of steel, is 4G5 feet
long, So feet breadth and Sc feet depth:
has a gross register of 6, 400 tons, dead
weight capacity of $3.50 tons on Is feet
draught, and gross displacement of 49,
GOO tons The engines will drive the
vessel when fully loaded at q speed of
1Oh knots.
During 1892 I'll vessels, aggregating
1851, 1O7 tons, were launched in the
United Kingdom. OF this number thirty
were war ships, aggregating ISL, 157
tons displacement. The remaining 6s1
vessels totaled l, 100, $50 tons. The out
put of the year falls below that of 1891
by about $1,000 tons. In both years the
proportion of sailing tonnage was un-
usually high. amounting last year to
over "a per cent and in 1891 over % per
cent of the total production. The out
put of 1889 is the largest on record.
Making allowances for estimated pro-
portionate values Of steam tonnage
compared with sailing tonnage. the out
put of 1892 was 350, 900 tons below that
of 1885,
"A series of experiments has demon
strated the relations between red fan
mel, monkeys, beer and rheumatism.
Two groups of Gagged monkeys were
abundantly supplied with beer by the
experimenters, one group being clad
in red flannel, the other group left
naked. All the naked monkeys con-
tracted rheumatism. and all the flannel
clad monkeys escaped. Then the ex-
perimenters, having thoroughly cured
the rheumatic monkeys, clad them in
flannel and let the other group go bare.
The supply of beer was cont nued, and
the bare monkeys were attacked by the
rheumatism, while the fannelclad
monkeys recovered. The experimenters
declare the beer made all the monkeys
apt sui jects for rheumatism, but that the
flannel, by keeping OF cold air from the
joints. prevented its development
The topography of the Atlantic
Ocean bed is now almost as we'll known
as if it were dry land. The charts rep
resent it as a huge trough of varying
depths, extending from pole to pole
Here and there are rocky peaks, like
that of Teneriffe, or huge mountains of
sand, like the banks of Newfoundland,
which reach up to or above the surface.
Between Ireland and Newfoundland
there is a remarkable submarine plane
This great level stretch of ocean bottom
is always referred to as the telegraph
or cable plateau" because of the fact of
the main submarine cables being
stretched across it. This plateau is be-
lieved to be a continuation of the great
watershed which, between the lati-
tudes of 40 and so degrees north, sur
rounds the earth and divides the waters
which flow south from those which flow
toward the north