The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-07-05
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

C. W. Frazier, of 1870 Preble avenue,
Allegheny, a chemist and electrician who
has made many experiments in the fuel
gas line, claims ne has just succeeded in
separating large quantities of pure hydro
gen gas from water. leaving the pure oxy-
gen in a liquid state as a most Valua Bile
product, says the Pittsburg Dispatch. The
separation is effected by electricity with
a small expenditure of electro-motive
force, as compared with other electricity
sis processes. The experiments have been
secretly conducted in a private labora-
tory in Allegheny. Frazier contends his
discovery will give him a monopoly in the
manufacture of a perfect fuel or illumi-
mating gas. Besides the hydrogen mixed
with air could be used for driving gas
engines. He claims hydrogen is a metal,
as has already been intimated by pro-
fessors of chemications. Frazier thinks
he has also made important discoveries
with the new water gas and believes the
world is on the eve of an astounding rev.
elation. He maintains steam engines and
steam boilers will then be done away
with.
The first manufactury of friction
matches was located in the center of the
Connecticut valley, in the historic com
munity known as Chicopee street, says
the Springfield Republican. The princi-
pie of this invention had been thought out
in Europe, but bright yankee minds were
quick to catch the idea from across the
water, and the manufacture progressed
as rapidly here as there. The credit for
this invention is probably due TO John
Walker, a chemist, who lived in England,
in Stockton-on-Tees. He was experiment
ing with chlorate Of potash, and found that
it could be instantly ignited by friction
when coated on a stick with phosphate
rorNa ,Ir,a
This discovery was made in 1893, and the
attention of Michael Faraday being call
ed to the new idea, ii soon became popu-
lar, and the manufacture was started
nearly simultaneously in Europe and
America. The first factory for the max
ing of friction matches on a barge scale
Is stated to have been established in vi
emma, in 1888. but the factory in Chicopee
street was running nearly as early as
this, if not before.
The question of a substitute for rubber
has already engaged the attention of many
minds, says the Manchester Union. The
demand for rubber increases steadily and
the supply is limited, but out in California
according to the San Francisco Call, they
think the problem has been solved, and
by newspaper reporter, too. The in
ventor uses a gum from a tree indigenous
to California, and San Francisco syn
UlCdlG mas purchased MS Gl2nlS. Inc SUD-
stance is said to resemble vegetable glue.
1t is secured by making an incision in the
large root of a certain tree. Under this
incision a hole is scooped in the earth.
in which a leaf is folded like a cup, or
else a tin vessel is placed, into which the
thin and nearly colorless juice runs. The
juice flows rapidly for the first ten or
fifteen minutes, and after two or three
days exposure to the air and sunlight
a LAYER n ic fFrio
which is then removed, and the crust or
layer of gum gradually reforms. The flow
Of gum is greatest in the spring and sum-
mer months. From 80 to 100 pounds can
easily be gathered each day by one man.
For every pound of juice one ounce of
for the purpose of curing and Fastening
the process of oxygenation The Juice
has been found to contain in 100 parts
12.5 hydrogen and S75 carbon, the specific
gravity being O.95. The crust that forms
over the juice consists of an insoluble
base with minute pores. containing the
soluble parts, which resemble other yege-
true, and if it is true the rubber trust
will presently be looking after the trees
in Sonoma county where the new rubber
supply is said to be most abundant.
C. w Cashion, who is presumably
veracious. conscientious citizen, went
from his home to st. Louis the other day,
and as he sat at the hotel door looking
at the lightning bugs" in the cleaning,
remarked to a st. Louis Republic repre-
sentative that these insects were unknown
few years ago, and now they are pests
in all the towns and cities in this coun-
try where electricity is in considerable
use. Said he: Il talked with college
professor at Indianapolis about them re-
Gently, and he is convinced that they have
sprung up as a sort of spontaneous out
growth of electric force. Anatomically,
the electric bug is sui generis, and APP
pears to imbibe its sustenance from some
property in the air currents that lie in
immediate contact with the electric cur
rents The college professor to whom I
spoke has been studying them closely and
he says he is convinced that in the end
they will prove a blessing. instead of a
curse. He thinks il probable that after
a while the enlarged use of electricity will
generate new germs and microbes in the
atmosphere that will be additional sources
of disease and bodily ills to the human
race, and that medical science will be
unable to cope with them for a long time.
Meanwhile, nature is responding to the
new demands on her storehouse by sending
these sWarms of bugs to purify the air
of poisonous things put in by the arc
lights and the trolley. He declares that he
has watched this strange new bug care
fully, and has thus far been unable to
ma out on what il subsists unless it be
some unknown foreign substances brought
into the atmosphere by the electric cur
rents. For that reason, he says, they are
very properly denominated electric bugs
and he believes they are destined to serve
good purpose as scavengers of the air
in the years to come"
The quick-firing pistol submitted by
Herr Mauser to the experts at the Ger
man war office will II it does all that is
claimed for IT, revolutionize the methods
of war. as far as cavalry are concerned,
says the London STANDARD. II Is said that
the mechanism will permit a carbine to
be discharged ninety times in a minute.
and that a stock can be applied 20 pistols
which will practically convert them into
carbines. The latter idea Is very good
one. Colts pistols have long been sup
piled with stock that will convert them
into carbines, and can be fixed on almost
simultaneously; but the Importance OF
the Invention lies not IN this. but in the
extraordinary power Of quick firing that
the new weapon would seem to possess
II successful, no doubt the pistol would
hoo ks. ssa.N