The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-14
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY
N USEFUL APPARATUs-BRIT-
 TILE COLD.
Castor oil in Ancient Egypt-Resis-
 tance to Traction-A Collection of [. Elugs-The New Egyptian JA Fossil-Peat Coke-Speak- hs U ing Candles.

[ "A recording thermometer described by an English physicist consists essentially of a dattened brass tube bent into a nearly complete circle eight inches across :, and filled with creosote. one end of the frtbe being attached to a stand and the other to a lever moving a pen on a re- cording drum. A change of a Fahrenheit degree defects the pen about an inch, a l continuous record of the changes being { marked on the paper covering the re- lvolving drum The thermometer is con- verted into a regulator for giving uniform temperature for days and weeks by sub- stituting an electric contact for the pen, the closing of the circuit being made to turn on more current if the heating is by electricity or to regulate the gas supply if a stove is used. With such a regula- tor the temperature of a room containing a ruling engine was kept for five days at 60 degrees, with no greater deviation than a fifth of a degree.
 A curious failure of the gold used in British coinage has been brought to mo- tice by Dr. T. K. Rose. This metal is an al@y of 91.6 per cent. of gold and 8.3 per cent. of copper. and it is made 50 brittle as to be unfit for use by the pres ence of minute traces of such impuri- ties of tellurium. lead, bismuth, etc, al- though considerably larger quantities of the same elements, except bismuth, do not affect the ductility of fine gold. The effect of the impurities is enumerated by adding copper oxide.
 Seeds of the castor oil plant are sur .prisingiy common in Egyptian tombs. Professor Larit a recent French investi- gator, finds that some seeds from Thebes must be at least 5000 years old. and from an ancient papyrus concludes that the oil Twas used for much the same purposes ias now.
 The Kew Herbarium, begun fifty years lhgo, is estimated to comprise considerably .more than 100000 specimens, attached to N;Soo.ooo sheets.
 Tn his important experiments upon the iFesistance of road vehicles to traction sProfessor Hele-Shaw measures the pull supon a single wheel drawn behind a mo- Nor car. A castor frame six feet long is arranged for receiving any wheel to be Fested, with weights tor giving any de- sired load, and the pull exerted upon the wheel is transmitted by a system of lev ,ers to hydraulic plunger, which through ,Ahe compression of enclosed water moves Ihhe pen of the recording apparatus. This apparatus, carefully mounted to avoid vibration, includes a drum carrying a paper band 8 1-2 inches wide, with a pen near one edge of the paper that registers tkhe tractive effort in pounds and a pen lnpon the other half that records the speed in miles through the revolutions Of the wheels of the car. The tests thus far have shown that the pull is fairly proportional to the load, but with pneu- anatic wheels on macadam road the in- crease with velocity was slight, while 1t was rapid with iron-shod wheels running over paving stones.
 The Arsinoitherium, the new fossil mon .eter of Egypt, had head nearly a yard Hong with pair of small horns near the Jeyes and an enormous double bony horn on the nasal region. Prof. F. Ray Lam kester. however. finds that it differs from khe rhinoceros and was probably descend ed from the early elephants.