The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-02-22
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

AS far back as 1854 Hamburg en-
broidery was imported from Switzer- |
land into the United States. The trade |
has grown steadily until now Switzer- |
land exports S12, 900, 900 worth of these |
machine embrOideries annually. The |
work was first started in Switzerland |
in 1927.
1t has been found by Saville-kent !
that the pearl oyster reaches maturity
in shorter time than formerly sup
posed. He thinks that under favora-
bic conditions period not exceeding
three years suttices for the shell to at
tain to the marketable size of eight or
nine inches in diameter, and that heavy
shells of five pound or six pound weight
per pair may be the product of five
years growth.
"A theory has been put forth by NJ.
Rateau in the French Academy of Sci
ences that the crust of the earth be-
meath the continent does not touch the
fluid globe, but is separated from it by
a space filled with gaseous matter I'M
der pressure The continents would
therefore constitute a sort of blister,
much fiattened, inflated and sustained
by gases, while the bottom of the
oceans is supposed to rest directly on
the fiery mass. By this hypothesis the
author believes that many phenomena
of the terrestrial crust may be eX-
planned which are not clearly ac-
counted for under the present theory.
Popular Science Monthly,
THE wing area of flying animals"
saws French naturalist, varies from
about forty-nine square feet Il pound of
weight in the gnat and five square feet
! in the swallow, to half a square foot
pound of weight in the Australian
crane, which weighs twenty-one pounds
| and yet flies well. If we were to adopt
! the last or smallest proportion. a man
weighing twelve stone would require II
pair of wings each of them fourteen
| feet long by three broad, or double the
area of an ordinary room door. to carry
| him, without taking into account the
weight of the wings themselves"
According to the Bureau Veritas,
or French Lloyds Great Britain owns
more than one-third of the actual ship
ping of the world-14,971 out of 1921
vessels. Six out of twelve of the lar
gest steam and sailing companies in
the world are British, and of the four
| teen vessels of over 1000 tons employed
| in the worlds commerce British ship
owners claim nine. The estimated
value of the merchants feet of Great
Britain is 81, 100, OO0 900. The United
| States comes second in the list with
1874 vessels owned by us Norway
comes next with 3, 76S ships, and is fol-
lowed by Germany and Italy with ,, 165
and ?, 1872 respectively.
Direct trade in two years, 1890 to
1892, increased the south's imports
| $50 600, 900 against So, 900, 600 in all the
rest of the Union, and swelled the
south's imports % per cent. against ;
per cent. in the rest of the United
States. One prime object of southern
direct trade has been to induce west
ern grain and flour and meat to go
abroad through southern ports by
southern IA lroads. In 1892 as a fruit
of this direct trade the west shipped
$1G4, 600, 900 of its exports through the
! is:Gisth to foreign countries, of which
| $50, 0Ov, UUJ- wvrU nredurUutfS, SI3, 900, 600
meat products and $4,000 900 cattle.
And nearly all of this western stuff
went through Baltimore, Newport
News, New Orleans and q Galveston
Atlanta Constitution.
! In relation to the visits of night
moths to flowers, resulting in their
cross-fertilization, recent author
shows that the lepidote clothing is so
easily detached that they invaria bly,
leave moth hair on the pistil, pro-
vided it is in the receptive condition
required for perfect fertilization. The
stigma at this period is utterly devoid
of membrane and forms at the apex d
! little cup containing sweet liquid into
which the pollen grain falls the moist
ure aiding in the development of the
pollen tube, and probably furnishing
the nutritive material requisite for its
growth The sticky fluid catches and
holds the moth hair" and thus the
observer can tell whether or not the
flower is favored by the visits of these
nocturnal creatures.
In a Fortnightly Review article,
relating to the thickness of glaciers, it
| - SldUttl JlldJ lHt ilOSG IcCcuJ re-
searches show that the thickness of
the ice has been usually underesti-
mated. A terminal moraine on the
Jura at Chasseron is four thousand feet
above the sea, or 2.770 feet above
Geneva. In order that the upper sur
face of the ice should have had suffi-
cient incline to flow onward as it did,
it was probably five thousand or six
thousand feet thick below Martigny,
and four thousand or five thousand
teet above the middle of the lake. The
essential condition for the formation
of glacier at all is that more ice
should be produced annually than is
melted away.
Sledge Dogs In Northwestern Canada.
Six or eight dogs are used on each
sledge. They are fed only once in
twentyfour hours and that is in the
morning before the start is made and
after the dogs are in harness. At that
time about four pounds of frozen fish