The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-05-03
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
Peat Clothing--A Promising Battery
DustLaying OIL for Floors-An Elec-
trio Boiier-Electric Fog Condensing
An Extraordinary Metal-Human HI
bernation-Map Of an Apes Brain-The
Light Of the Sky.
Considerable progress seems to have been
made in the use of peat wool. The material
has been undergoing trial by Dusseldorf man
ufacturers, who prepare 1t by isolating the vege-
table fibers and then treating them with acids
and alkalies, the result being peat wool con-
ssting of nearly pure cellulose. This soft,
elastic product may be spun like sleeps wool.
Mixed with cotton or sleeps wool, II may be
made into various textiles, and. while it seems
to have been most successful for felt hats, it
has given more or less satisfactory results for
dress goods, carpets. ETC., which may be bleached
or dyed. Peat wadding is especially valuable
for surgical dressings.
A new galvanic cell, which may take the form
of very durable dry cell, has been designed at
Ludwigshafen for electric lighting and for driv-
ing small machinery. The depolarizing agent is
calomel, which is mixed with finely divided car
bon, and also with chalk to neutralize the n.y.
drochloric acid formed. An electrode of car
bon or platinum is placed in bag of the mix
ture, the positive pole being the usual zinc
chloride. The electromotive force is about one
volt.
An Austrian material for preventing the ris-
Ing of dust on sweeping proves to be cotton
seed oil. In test at Vienna, it was found that
floors oiled twice a year could be swept weekly
without any whirling of the dust, and the ma
terial was recommended for all rooms receiving
many persons, as well as for laboratories, IL
braries. and other places to be keptscrupulously
dust-free.
The Australian cypress pine Is stated to be
proof against the teredo of the ocean and all
insects of the land. 1t is much used for piles,
etc., and for furniture it is a handsome wood
with an odor agreeable to the human nose.
."s
Fire being now prohibited in Partisan play
houses, the manager of the Chatalet Theatre
has devised an electric boiler for stage steam
boat. This has a capacity of twelve gallons,
and is provided with a whistle, siren, pressure
gauge. and the other usual accessories. Through
holes in the bottom project ten tubes fourteen
inches long, closed at the top. Into each tube
is pressed a so-called candle" consisting of a
cylinder of fire-clay surrounded by German
silver wire spiral covered with asbestos card
board, and the passage of an electric current
heats the wire to redness. With the candles all
in circuit, current of forty amperes gives suf-
fcient steam pressure for whistle and siren in
about an hour and half.
-.
The influence of electric discharges on smoke
was shown by Lord Rayleigh in beautiful ex-
pertinent illustrating recent Royal Institution
lecture. A large glass globe was filed with q
dense smoke from burning PHOSPHORUS, and a
Wimshurst machine was then made to produce
inside the vessel and ordinary 'brush discharge"
of very rapidly oscillating electric currents.
The effect was magical the globe being cleared
from smoke in few seconds through the CO.
hesion of the particles and their settling upon
the glass. The possibility is pointed out that
London fogs some day may be dssipated by gil
gantic electric apparatus. but if not. the brush
discharges on small scale may be made at least
to act as smoke consumers.
-
The new secret alloy of NJ. P. German, stated
to cost less than twenty cents a pound, is al
legged to have remarkable properties. 1t is a
little heavier than gold, it is claimed to be less
liable to fracture than steel and to admit of
tempering like that metal. and it may be welded
by hammering without heat. Its color is vel.
low, and it resists oxidation and acids
s*s
kind OF Information among human beings
has been discovered in Russia In times of
winter scarcity, the peasants of whole districts
economic animal heat and reduce the necessity
for food by going to bed and sleeping most of
the time for four or five months.
~
map of the functions of the fore part of
the brain. the frontal lobe, is the remarkable
piece of work of British surgeons. The expert
ments were tried upon chimpanzees, which
rank near man in the scale of brain develop
ment, and the operations began with the max
ing of tiny openings in the skulls of the an@s-
thetzed AZ agpimals The Wounds heipe hee,aa
the apes wrist, while the other, in the form of a
platinum point, was touched gently to the BRAIN
The responses were prompt and often ludicrous,
the movements of the body showing clearly
that the nerve stations excited control respec-
tive parts as here indicated the lowest part of
the frontal lobe. the eyes and other organs of
the face the top of the brain just behind the
forehead, the toes; point under the hair-line
of the forehead, the shoulder; little lower
center, the elbow; a section still lower, the
wrist; center over the eyes and between the
temples, the fingers and thumbs. The eye
controlling center is almost directly behind the
eye, and under it are two distinct jaw centers,
one controlling the opening and the other the
closing of the jaw. Two cases of injury to the
human brain have been successfully treated in
accordance with these facts.
Sc
Attempts have been made to measure the
light of the moonless night sky Mr.. Gavin ].
Burns, an English astronomer. has roughly esti-
mated that the total light of one hemisphere
equals that Of 1000 first-magnitude stars. and
Prof. Simon Newcomb has-perhaps more accu-
rately-found this total light to be equal to that
of 600 to 800 rst-magnitude stars. The bright
ness seems to be not entirely due to visible and
invisible stars. The Zodacal Light and the
Gegenscheiu, a midnight glow opposite the sun,
have been seen to extend across the heavens,
and it suggested that these are but intensified
lions of general luminosity of the entire sky
due to some unknown cause.
-.
An English Psychologist explains that girl
can never throw like boy because her collar
bone is larger and sets lower.