The record-union., 1897-11-28
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

An experiment of considerable inter
est to brick manufacturers and dealers
has been tried in a brickyard in New
York State fuel oil being used instead
of wood or coal oil 10 burn a kiln of
bricks. Fuel oil is the product left
after crude petroleum has been refined.
1t has been used for some time as fuel
for engines and furnaces, but its
adapta bility for the more delicate oper-
alton of burning pottery or bricks is
a. recent discovery. The success of the
experiment is likely to reduce the cost
| Of brickmaking in a considerable de-
gree. Forced draught is an important
factor in the system, and by it the
heat from the burner can be directed at
a uniform temperature toward any part
of the arch of the kiln. The oil runs
| in pipes around the base of the kiln and
feeds directly from the burner in the
arch in the interior. The forced draught
feeds in" with the oil. and by the turn
ing of valve the heat can be regulated
at any point within the arch. 1t is
asserted that the use of oil is much
cheaper than that of either coal or
wood for brick burning. The cost of
burning 1000 bricks with wood at 50
a cord is so cents; the cost when coal
is used is 30 cents; with oil the cost
is .5S cents. In burning bricks with
wood twelve men are required every
twenty four hours; if oil is used two
men can do the work. The new meth
Cd is quicker, completing the burning
of a kiln of bricks in six days, instead
of seven or eight, as formerly, and the
bricks are better, because with the fore
| ed-air draught the temperature of the
kiln is entirely under control
A simple bale of cotton which was
recently placed on exhibition in New
Orleans office has created not little
sensation in many Southern States.
There was a stream of cotton factors,
merchants, steamship men. cotton press
men, cotton mill men, screwmen, steve
dores and many others interested in
cotton to see it, and not one had a good
| word to say for it, The trouble was
! that the cotton was baled cylindrically
instead of cubically, and it is the pro-
posal that cotton in future shall be
baled in the new shape that has upset
SO many branches of the cotton COM
munity. One of the Louisiana cotton
men avows that if it ever becomes the
style in that section of the country
it will not only do away with local fac
tories, but will close up all the country
compresses, obviate the necessity of
having country buyers, and, in fact,
revolutioniZe the whole cotton business.
A further contingency looked for is that
the new system eventually would re-
suit in the trust people debating terms
to the producer of cotton They might
give probably better prices than any
one else for year or two, but as soon
as they got control of the staple they
would dictate prices and terms to the
farmer. A large Southern cotton pro-
ducer asserts that the adoption of the
new shape would throw out of business
all the 200 congresses OF the South and
might create a social as we'll as indus
trial revolution.
Some interesting statistics collected by
DIR. Louis Parkes to indicate what sani-
tary science has done toward the pres
ervation and prolongation of human
life in Great Britain during the Vic
torian era show that the mortality from
smallpox had diminished by 96 per
cent. in 1S91-o as compared with the
mortality in 1882. In the same pc
riod the deaths from fever had de-
clined 81 per cent, while since 1919
there bad been a decrease of % per
cent. in the mortality from typhus and
of 60 per cent. from enteric fever. Since
lS61-o the mortality from scarlet fever
had fallen 81 per cent, although that
from diphtheria had risen in recent
years, end was now very much the
same as it was thirty years ago. In
zymotic diseases there had been a de-
crease of "a per cent, and in measles
81 per cent, though epidemics of mea-
sles and whoopng cough were as COM
mon Us when the Queen came to the
throne. In phthisis the mortality had
fallen As per cent, though it was still
high. Cancerous diseases. on the other
hand. would appear to have increased
nor was the whole of the increase at
tributable to more precise diagnosis
Ague had been nearly eradieated. owing
to the better cultivation of the soil
Only those who died from acute a.co-
honsm were returned as having died
from the effects Of drink, yet the deaths
from that cause were as numerous as
they we're twenty or thirty years ago
Or. parkes holds that the general ef-