The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-06-14
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.


Great Britain exports every year
about e11o.0OO,OO0 of textile fabrics,
$50, 100000 of metals, ell, 100000 of
clothing and es,OOO,oOO of chemicals.
Russia exports wheat, cattle, hides,
wool, gold, iron, copper, lumber and
platinum. and manufactures enormous
quantities of alcohol and sugar.
The Cape of Good Hope raises
wheat, oats, Indian corn, rye and
barley. 1t also makes 1000, 600 gallons
of wine every year and 100000 of
brandy.
-Toads and frogs carry supply of
water about with them in a sack pro
vided for the purpose. If, by accident.
the supply becomes exhausted, the
animal dies.
The strongest timber known is the
"Bilian" or Borneo ironwood. whose
breaking strain is one and fifty-two
hundredths times greater that that of
English oak. By long exposure it be-
comes of ebony blackness and inn
mensely hard.
Farmers in Tasmania and Eastern
Australia frequently turn up with a
DlON al SuDSldIlCC JlldU IcStlublCS DO-
tato, but is, in reality. species of poly
porus fungus. 1t is allied to the Tuck
ahoe or Indian bread found in the
United States. but, unlike its American
congener. has no value as food, being
insipid and indigestible.
Good pencil cedar is getting so
scarce that the great firm of Faber 81
Co. have begun to cultivate forests of
cedar in Germany. At SchlOss Stein
there is a cedar forest which covers
thirteen acres, and the head of the firm
has for many years maintained nurser-
les and plantations of cedars on his
land in Bavaria, grown from seed
which he imported from Florida.
Mr.. II. II. Dixon has been studying
the locomOtion of insects and spiders
by means of instantaneous photographs.
He finds. says Nature that the limbs
move together in diagonals. In insects
the first and third legs on one side
move with the second on the other, the
antenR moving with the first leg on
the same side. In the case of spiders,
which have eight legs. the first and
third on one side move with the second
and fourth on the other.
Murray Challenger expedition
states the greatest depth of the Atlantic
ocean at 1856 feet: Pacific ocean.
| thirty thousand feet: Indian ocean.
1882 feet: Southern ocean. 25.20O feet;
Arctic ocean, nine thousand feet. The
Atlantic ocean has an area in square
miles of "A. $500 Pacific ocean. So
5000 Indian ocean. II. 0S4 900: Arctic
ocean, 4.1S1 900: Southern ocean. 3d.
592 600. The highest mountain is be
lieved to be Deodhunga, one of the
Himalayas. 29.OO2 feet.
M. +. Walter has found that an al
10y consisting of ninetyfve parts of
tin and five parts of copper adheres so
tenaciously to glass that it may be en-
ployed as a solder to join the ends of
of glass tubes. 1t is obtained by adding
the copper to the tin previously melted,
egitating with a wooden stirrer, cast
ing or granulating, and then re-melt-
ing. 1t meltS at about $50 degrees c.
By adding from half to one per cent. of
lead or zinc, the alloy may be rendered
either softer or harder, or more or less
easily luolbIt. IL lldN dlSc bt uSttl LOT
silvering metals or metallic thread. -
Revue Scientifique.
-Celluloid is prepared from dry gun
cotton treated to a solution of camphor
in the least possible quantity of alcohol.
AS layer is placed on layer of the gun
cotton the solution is sprinkled upon it
until finally it sinks into transparent
1rmnS These ora first worked ba+yvaa,
cold iron rollers. and then rollers heated
by steam. forming layers that are finally
subjected to hydraulic pressure. After
thorough drying of the resulting plates
they are nodded while warm. cut and
turned into any desired form. The
imitation of amber, coral and the like
is accomplished by coloring the humps
of celluloid as first formed and pressing
various colors together in the proper
lions and patterns desired. Non-com-
bustible celluloid has not yet been
made.