The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-08-29

Chaldean misunderstanding in Warm
Air-Hat-Plume Farming-New Views
on the Winds--Brass-Foun MADE
Safe-Italian Science-RemarkaDIe FER
fume-Forming-Peat as Builders Ma
teria1-Hot-Wate Life.
Between Bagdad and the Persian Gulf, about
500 miles along the Tigris, is desert in which
Sir William Willocks finds the same engineer
ing opportunities that are being improved in
Egypt. As late as $40 A. D., this land of Chal-
dea was made one of the most fertile and pros
porous centers of agriculture through great
irrigation system, with a main canal $50 miles
long and an immense number of subsidiary
canals. For the first ten miles the great canal,
with width of 65 feet, was cut through hard
conglomerate rock to a depth of so feet. With
neglect of the works, the main stream of the
Tigris became diverted, the old bed of the river
silted up, the irrigation system fell into ruins,
and only mounds on the barren plain mark the
sites of the ancient villages. To reclaim nearly
three million acres by a new irrigation SYSTEMS
Sir Williams hope.
The freezing of leaves and buds on clear spring
nights when the air temperature is above freez-
ng-point has been superstitiously looked upon
as an effect of the moons light An English
experimenter finds that, while all objects have
the temperature of the surrounding air on
cloudy nights, rapid radiation may produce a
difference on clear nights, and a piece of cot
ton proved to be at times six and even eight de-
grees colder than the air. Plants may be SINH
larly chilled below freezing, with the air above.
-
Pointing out the need of protecting egrets, or
white herons, an English naturalist calls atten
ton to the possibilities of egret-farming. This
has been successfully established at Tunis, and
as egret plumes worth more than their
weight in gold, the profits from cutting the
reatners rroIn che birds should DC large.
sFs
Certain balloon explosions are attributed by
w. de Fonvielle to electric sparks as the aero
naut grasps the valve-rope. The use of gloves
in stormy weather is suggested.
4+s
The general circulation of the atmosphere has
been outlined from late report by Fl. Hide
grandson, the Upsala meteorologst Above
the thermal equator, and constant throughout
the year, is an eastern current, which carried
the dust of the Krakatoa eruption of 1888
around the world from east to west in IL to Is
days, showing an average velocity of 81 meters
per second. Above the region of trade winds Is
an upper contra-trade wind current, from the
southwest in the northern hemisphere and the
northwest in the southern hemisphere. The
contra-trade wind current gradually devates
until it becomes a western current above the
barometic maximum of the tropics, and at the
crest of this high pressure it descends to feed
the trade winds. Near the equator are regions
belonging to the belt of equatorial Gains at one
part of the year and to the trade winds at an
other, with a corresponding everything monsoon
extending the contra-trade wind in winter and
the equatorial eastern current in summer The
high pressure of the tropics steadily diminishes
toward the poles, and the air of the temperate
zones is drawn into a vast polar whirlpool turn
ing from west to east, the circular movement
reaching upward at least 10 Or II miles. The in
fuence of surface Irregularities mostly disap-
pears at the height of the lower or intermediate
clouds.
Few trades, If any, are more dangerous to
health than brass-casting, on account of the
fumes of zinc oxide that surround the work
man on pouring the metal. In the new appara-
tus of w. Lynes, Birmingham brass-founder,
the melting pot is covered with hood, which
leads to the outer air, through length of fexi-
BILE tubing and galvanized iron pipe, and both
Swimming and pouring are done under this hood.
The foundry is kept free of poisonous fumes
while the zinc oxide condenses in the irion pipe
and is collected and utilized.
~
Meteorology owes its origin to Italy, whichas
DR.. H. G. Bolton notes, produced every one
OF the fundamental instruments now used in
weather observations. The hygrometer was in
vented about 1850 by Nicolas de Cusa anemome-
ter. 1878. by Egnatio Dante thermometer, 1895,
by Calico raingauge, 1889, by Cartelli barome-
ter, 1913, by Torricelli.
-.
A common method of extracting perfumes
from flowers is enfleurage, which consists in
lard for few days. When saturated with the
perfume, the lard itself may be used, or the es-
sentia oil may be extracted under strong alco-
hol. The process being tedious, many attempts
mostly unsatisfactory-have been made to OBJ
tain the essential oil direct from the flowers by
means of light petroleum. curious recent
discovery is that perfume making still goes on
in the flowers during enfleurage, and DIR. Albert
Hesse reports that ton of tuberose blossoms
only yielded 66 grams of oil by petroleum ex-
traction, but gave up sol grams to the embed
ding fat in enfeurage and yielded, rs grams
more when the faded blossoms were distilled.
The flowers appear to have contained more
perfume after exhaustion by enfeurage than
when first gathered.
"a
The new peat wood of Joseph Hemmerling
of Dresden, takes high polish, and is 80 to so
per cent. cheaper than oak. 1t is especially re-
commended for panels, parquet flooring and
ceilings. The material is produced by addingto
the wet peat some binding material up to per
cent. of its total weight then forming into CYL
inders under high pressure, and finally dryingat
high temperature for four or five days.
"a
An effort to determine from geysers the upper
temperature limit of life has led Prof. w. A.
Setchell to conclude that no animals exist in
strictly thermal waters, or those heated above
43o or 450 c. q09o or 1922. A Harmonious plant,
one of the bacteria, was found at S90 c., and
few other simple forms were foand at ITO and
below. How the protoplasm of these organisms
is made to resist the coagulation that usually
destroys life at little above 400 C. is not clear.
~
1t has been noted that vessels may float down.
stream faster than the water. The explanation
is that both the water and the floating object are
being pulled down hill by gravity, but the water
is much more retarded by friction.