The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-05-10
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

-Cuckoos are the only birds that eat
hairy caterpillars, so far as is known.
The horny Innings of their gizzards are
sometimes found SO thickly perforated
by the sharp and strong hairs of these
insects as to be actually fuzzy when
dried.
Glassware cracks when placed in
hot water because, being a poor con-
ductor of heat, the outside becomes
hot and expands, while the interior is
still cool. The strain resulting from
this unequal expansion causes the
fracture. For this reason, thin glass,
which is quickly heated through, is
less likely to break than the thick,
heavy varieties.
Picket finds that at the tempera-
ture of 112 degrees Fair. metallic So
dunn is not acted upon by hydrochloric
acid. AS the temperature rises, how
ever, an action begins, and becomes
more and more energetic until an eX-
plosion occurs. In the same way mar
BILE is unaffected by hydrochloric acid
at very low temperature, showing
how important a condition of chemical
action is temperature.
Prof. Berthelot has pointed out
that in the writings of Avicenna there
is mention of metallic aerolite which
fell in dorian, in central Asia, in the
eleventh century, which could neither
be broken nor worked up into arms or
tools. One of the blocks of native iron
found at Ovijak, in Greenland, in 1870,
is SO hard that it can neither be
scratched nor cut, and Prof. Norden-
skiold suggests that this may be due to
the presence of black diamonds dissem-
mated through the iron.
Land snails in cold climates bury
themselves in the ground or under dead
leaves in winter; in tropical regions
they become torpid during the hot sea-
son. When about to start in on a period
of sleep they seal up their shells with
close-fitting door, which sometimes
is a shield of transparent mucus and
in other cases an opaque membrane as
thick as visiting card Behind this
the animal constructs other walls,
which serve like so many partitions to
protect it against prolonged cold.
The Northwestern Lumberman pre-
sents it's report of pine product in 1898
in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The grand total output in 1898 fell
below the total in 1892 to the amount
of /, 3O2 500, 800 feet of lumber, and in
shingles there was comparative de-
crease of S2S, S21, orc. The total product
last year was smaller than in any year
since 1856, when it was 1926, sos, 443
feet less than that in 1885, years of re-
stricted production which followed the
industrial and trade depression of 1888
and 1884.
AT the level of the sea the pressure
of the atmosphere on the piston of an
engine is about fifteen pounds to the
square inch, but decreases at higher
attitudes. AS this atmospheric pres
sure must be overcome by the steam
| pressure before any work can be done,
| it is evident that at the diminished air
pressure of high attitudes more work
can be obtained from a given pressure
| of steam than at the sea level, or in
other words, an equally effective pres
sure of steam can be obtained with the
| expenditure of less fuel. The differ
ence, however, is not great enough to
be of any practical Importance.
| Some very odd things are come
across by the ornithologists who are
engaged in examining thousands of
stomachs of various kinds of birds for
the purpose of ascertaining what they
eat and how much of the crops they
destroy. In the stomach of crow
was found warbler. The stomach of
| the warbler contained a caterpillar
and traces of the vegetation on which
the latter had fed were clearly dis
cerned under the microscope. Another
oddity discovered in the stomach of
crow was rubber elastic band, which
had evidently been picked up by mis-
take for worm. Once in awhile
bedbug is found in the stomach of
woodpecl<er. Doubtless the insects are
got from pine trees. Pine-cones are
often infested by bedbugs which must
have lived on those trees long before
they became human parasites.