The Bossier banner., 1894-07-19
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

Great Britain exports every year
about 911O,0O0,O00 of textile fabrics,
g6O, 100000 of metals, Gil 100000 of
clothing and 100000 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 100000 gallons
of wine every year and 100000 of
brandy.
-Toads and frogs carry supply Of
water about with them in sack pro-
vided for the purpose. If, by accident,
the supply becomes exhausted, the
animal dies.
The strongest timber known is the
breaking strain is one and ffty-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
plow substance that resembles po-
tato, but is, in reality, a 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 &
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.
MIR. H. H. 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
anten@ 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 1886 feet; Pacific ocean,
thirty thousand feet; Indian ocean,
1882 feet; Southern ocean, 25,2O0 feet;
Arctic ocean, nine thousand feet. The
Atlantic ocean has an area in square
miles of 24,536, 900; Pacific ocean, So
800, 900; Indian ocean, II ,OS4 900; Arctic
| ocean, 4,7S1,0 900; Southern ocean, So
| 592, 900. The highest mountain is be
| lieved to be Deodhunga, one of the
| Himalayas, 29,OO2 feet.
M. f. 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,
| agitating 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 zine, the alloy may be rendered
either softer or harder, or more or less
easily fusible. 1t may also be used for
| silvering metals or metallic thread
Revue Scientifque.
-Celluloid is prepared from dry gun
cotton treated to 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 ii
until finally it sinks into transparent
Jumps. These are first worked between
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 Worm, 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
tions and patterns desired. Non-com
bustible celluloid has not yet beer
| too6a