Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-11-30
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

Lieutenant Maury has calculated
that if an inch OF rain fell over fifth
part of the surface OF the Atlantic, it
woald mean an addition to its volume
Of $50 million tons of water, and that
if the same amount of water evapor-
ated from the ocean, it would leave 16
million tons of sea- salt.
Ac.crding to the state geologist of
Indiana, the natural gas supply of that
state is decreasing in pressure, and its
quantity is limited. In five years all
the pipe lines have been extended
towards the heart of the field, and the
centre is now reduced to an area of
less than $50 square miles. In this
centre the pressure has diminished
from 264 pounds in 1895 to 181 pounds
in 1893, and the average rock pres
sure of the entire field has been re-
luced from 191 pounds in November.
1897, to 173 pounds in November,
1898. The average pressure at which
salt water overcome gas is stated at
between 1870 and $50 pounds to the
square inch, and this necessitates the
a andonment of the we'll.
A strange complaint which has lately
been prostrating large numbers OF
Parisians has been attributed hy med
lcal men to rather peculiar cause.
This is the presence in their patients
morning rolls of salts of lead, depos-
tied on the floors and walls of the
ovens in which they have been baked.
According to the medical theory, the
extensive use of old timber in place
Of other fuel that SO largely obtains
in France is directly responsible for
this condition of affairs. AS result,
the Paris council of hygiene has is
sued an edict forbidding the employ
ment by bakers of wood from cd
houses, disused railway sleepers or
wooden paving blocks for their fur
naces. Such timber is usually impreg-
mated with sulphate of copper or creo-
sote, and poisonous volatile salts are
liable to rise from it when heated.
Last spring plan was proposed at
the Harvard college observatory for
the construction OF telescope of un
usual length for photographing the
stars and planets. Anonymous don
ors have now furnished the means Sby
which this experiment may be made,
and it is expected that telescope
aaving an aperture of twelve inches
IN | length of hundred feet or
more will soon be ready for trial at
Cambridge. The exhibit of the Har-
'ard observatory at the Paris exposi-
ion will Iepresent the work of the
United States in astronomy. Among
;he co lection of photographs of heav-
and photographs OF stellar spectra pro-
luced with the aid of the great photo
graphic telescope now i'll South Amer
,ca. There also will be an exhibit of
glass photography illumined by elec.
Sricity.
Another mechanical prodigy has
been added by the Boston Elevated
Railroad company to it's magnificent
equipment. This is new steel shaft
reported to be the largest ever cast
to form part of new vertical cross
compound engine, which is being put
Ia pla e in the company's centralpow
station, an engine of four thousand
horse power, at ordinary speed. The
shaft is twenty eight feet in length,
over all, thirty-ei 5ht inches diameter
in the centre aud weighs in its finished
state about seventytive thousand
pounds; as rough casting it was
much heavier, OF course, hole fifteen
inches in diameter having to be bored
n the centre. In the journals, which
are each fifty inches in length, leav-
.ng length of some twenty feet be-
:ween the CT ntres, the diameter is thirty
IN hes. lhe vast proportio is charac-
;erizing all the other features OF this
undertaking will be further under
stood when it is stated that the fly
wheel asting weighs seventy-tive tons.