The Indianapolis journal., 1898-07-10
SCIENTIFIC.

In experiments upon various animals, DR..
W. d. Turner has found lard the most ef-
fective antidote for strychnine
1t is to the tobacco habit that certain
medical authorities attribute the present
physique of the Spanard, the Italian and
the French, who are all shorter, lighter and
less muscular than at an earlier period.
''Tfol," an argillaceous eartn containing
free gelatinous silica, is used by Arabs of
northern Africa as a substitute for laundry
soap It is capable of absorbing five times
its weight of heavy tar oil, and a French
chemist finds that it may be used with such
oil for producing an emulsion of great value
for disinfecting purposes.
A bell of new form has been invented
in Germany by Herr Appunn. The shape is
hemispherical, and the metal is of uniform
thickness except for some distance from
the edge, where it is suddenly and greatly
thickened. The bell is said to have a very
deep tone and to be as powerful as con-
sderably larger bells of the form so long
used.
Various nonconducting coverings for
steam pipes having proven unsatisfactory
and costly in the great works of Schneider
& Co., at Crensot, France, a mixture of
granulated Stag and SCOT has been tried
This is laid on as mortar to thickness of
"A 10 z12 lncnes, IS then wrapped with felt,
and, If the pipes are exposed to the weather,
Is finally fitted with a casing of sheet steel.
This inexpensive covering has been found
very effective.
The cost of cooking by electricity was the
subject of a recent series of elaborate ex-
periments at Frankfort, where current is
supplied at somewhat less than cents per
rent for dinner~for four persons, consist
ing of boiled beef and soup, caulifiower, cut
lets, fried potatoes, broiled fish, boiled po-
tatoes, entrecoteS and a pastry dessert was
Is cents; that for meal of different dishes
for six persons being about half as much.
Although the street railways of Paris en-
ploy nine systems of mechanical traction,
the lines using these systems have an ag-
gregate length of only 50 miles, while the
horse tramways still claim 129 miles. In
horselesS carriages, however, Paris leads
the world. A recent trial of cabs driven by
petroleum, steam and electricity 'sulted
so favOrably for the last that one 1dred
electric cabs, to run at ten miles a. hour,
were at once ordered.
The transparency to X rays of the diff
ferent forms of carbon and the opacity of
silicates have suggested to H. Couriot,
French investigator, the use Of these rays
as a test for mineral fuel. Experiments have
fully justified his expectations, anthracite
coal, Ignite, peat coke and briquettes
showing plainly upon the radoscopic screen
the details of the internal structure of their
mineral matter, and the slightest fragment
of schist, invisible to the naked eye, being
revealed as a spot or band. In place of the
usual proportion of ash determined by
chemical analysis, this method gives-with-
out destroying the sample-an instan-
taneous view Of the mineral skeleton of the
fuel.
The compound steam turbine directly
coupled to a dynamo dates from 1884, accord
ing to Mr.. c. A. Parsons. The first motor
ran at 1,SOO revolutions per minute, giving
six horse power, but dynamos and alterna-
tors of 500 to 200 horse power are now driven
by direct-coupled turbines more than 80, 900
horse power of such machines being at work
in England. The compound turbines are of
two types-the parallel flow and the
''radial flow." In the former the steam. en-
tering by an inlet all around the shaft
passes through successive turbines of grad
uslly enlaTging passageway. and is expand
ed in small part at each turbine, finally es-
Gaping to the exhaust pipe. In the radial
flow type the rows of turbine blades are
keyed into and project from the faces OF
moving disks attached to the shaft and
fixed disks attached to the casing. The
steams course is outward through the rings
of blades, then inward and again outward
through the blades of the succeeding disk
and 80 on The bearings are specially con-