The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1894-12-15
SCIENCE Avn INDUSTRY.

! Is
The steady i.i~.~stse in the use of
steel over iron may be realized from a
| glance at railway statistics In 1880,
Of the 1884, 47 miles of railroad in the
United States, sl,9G7 miles, or roo per
cent. were laid with iron tracks In
| 1898, 19l, S57 miles. of road were
equipped with steel out of a total
mileage of 229,Ol2, the percentage being
s3.s.
in a work on the coal reserves of
Europe and their exhaustion, Herr r.
Naffe makes the following estimates
of the available coal remaining in the
various coal fields, counting only seams
of workable thickness not lower than
1900 meters (s.925 feet: Germany,
112, 600, 900, 900 metric tons fincluding
some lignite); Great Britain and Ire
land, 1913, 900, 900 tons; France, 49,
600, 0o0,0 600 tons; Austria, 1900, 900, 900
tons; Belgium, Is, 900. 000, 900 tons; total
for Europe, 100000, 100000 tons.
"A dispatch to the London Times
from Calcutta says that during the re-
cent cholera epidemic at Lucknow sew
eral soldiers who were inoculated with
DIR. Haffkine's virus were attacked, and
that the proportion of mortality among
them was the same as among ordinary
patients. This contradicts the results
of the experiments conducted by Drs.
Hafflxine and Simpson, in Calcutta last
June. 1t was then said that few, If
any, of those inoculated were attacked
by the disease, or if attacked they
promptly recovered.-N. Y. Medical
Record.
There is a general impression that
the humidity of the air is greater in
the woods than in the open fields. This
is contradicted, however, by the result
of observations recently made in Ger
many. 1t was found there that the
humidity, both relative and absolute,
was slightly greater in the open than
in the woods, and this was true equally
in the morning and in the afternoon
As to the temperature of the air among
the trees it was a trife higher than in
the open in the morning, and in more
marked degree in the afternoon.
The price Of iron ore, which in 1890
was So per ton for lake Bessemer ores
delivered at Cleveland, in 1894 was for
the same grades s2.7s, and Mesaba Bes-
semer ores, which entered and broke
the market in 1893. sold this year at
81. so per ton. Connellsville coke, which
in 1890 was S2.07 per ton, sold in 1898
and 1894 at IS cents per ton, and there
has been general, though smaller, re-
duction in wages and in general ex-
penses at the furnaces The decline in
the cost and selling prices of iron ore
during the past year are well known to
be largely due to the discovery and
opening of the great ore quarries of
the Mesaba in Minnesota
and Mining Journal.
M. Girard, chief of the Paris munic-
ipaI laboratory, in late researches con-
corning the bacilli of cholera and ty-
phoid fever, has once more proved the
efficacy of acids in destroying microbes
He finds citric acid to be the most USE
full and powerful of all. One gramme,
he says, added to a quart of tainted
water, will destroy all the microbes
that may be in it. Consequently, he
recommends the use of natural lemon
ade as an excellent beverage at all
times, and especially during epidemics.
If necessary, a little bicarbonate of
soda can be added as means of neu-
tralizing the acidity of the lemon.
Recent experiments for determin-
ing the effect of massage upon the
blood show that it increases the number
of red blood corpuscles enormously, and
also the hemoglobin, though to less
extent. In some cases there was an
even greater increase in the white
blood corpuscles. DR.. s. Wier Mitchell
suggests that the increase is due to the
bringing into the general circulation of
corpuscles which have been previously
accumulated in the smaller vessels of
the larger viscera. DR.. Reynolds sug-
gests that the increase may be only
relative, and due to the withdrawal of
a portion of the fluid elements of the
blood into the tissues. The effects of
massage seem to be identical with
those of cold bathing and exercise.