The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-08
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY
COMING SYNTHETIC PRODUCTS.
 LIGHTING IN WARFARE.
Harmless Match h-Material-The Ap- petite a Safe GUide-A Scientific Station for Arctic Regions.
 Acetylene Storage-An
 Extinct Plague.

Ethylogen, a new carbide, has been the | subject of curious and promising French departments. When plunged into water, this carbide gives off ethylene gas, and when this gas is passed into sulphuric acid l 1t is absorbed, producing ethyl sulphuTc 1 ether. which becomes the raw material for many organic products. Distilled with much water. this yields alcohol; with less water. ether. The addition of oxygen gives other products, such as acetle acid acetone, and even other car burets. Alcohol and ether really pro ceed from coke and water. as all other materials required may be used repeated ly. The chief cost is for the carbon and the electric energy for producing the carbide. and this new development of synthetic chemistry opens a wide field of possibilities in supplying light and power, Through a similar process, said to be nearly perfected nitrogen from the air Is being fixed in fst!l.zer richer than the nltrates of Chilli.
 To destroy armies by lightning Is thought by Emile Gua,ini. a French writer to be a possibility, Receiving a shock from a wireless telegraph apparatus through an umbrella, he experimented with a Ruhmkorff coil, and found that shocks could be transmitted through the
 
 cludes that the energy of 1000 horse power. at 100000 volts. could be concen- trated by antennae so as to destroy life at distance of twelve miles. The pre- sent difficulty. which he believes will be soon overcome, is that of controlling and directing the electric waves.
 Portland cement from blast-furnace slag and limestone, as made In Germany fN a1o nn1 fa ha not n1.r cheaper than that from the usual mate rials but more reliable in composition. Mortar of one part slag cement to three of sand had a tensile strength of 3s3 pounds per square inch in seven days, 551 in twenty-eight days
 The new German material for matches is form of red phosphorus, first prepar- ed by pr. Schenck, and It differs from yellow phosphorus in giving on no fumes and in being therefore quite harmless to operatives who dip matches. It IS produced by meating a solution of yellow phosphorus in phosphorous bromide to about lsO degrees C. It is precipitated out of the solution and after being filter ed off Is freed f-om yellow phosphorus | hv washing with carbon disulphide. While
 the lighting point of the substance Is that
 of ordinary red phosphorus. the new varieyt is in state oI Such me GIVIsioa l .hat when mixed tn potassium chlorate 1 it is readily set on fire by rubbing against any surface.
 { That taste Is reliable guide to our 1 food needs is the theory of P. T. Boris
 SOW. a Russian physician. Such curiosi- | ties of taste as the craving for chalk, 1 coal. acids. etc. result from real neces-
 sites. and children often eat earth, wall paster and the like at an age when the | growth of the bones Is most energetic and
 an extra supply Of mineral matter is de-
 manded. The strong appetite of children for sweets and farinaceous loods Is ex- rates during work and the production of
 animal heat. To verify his theory. the
 author axpo~!non;cd on chickens, and
 found that roosters. which lay no eggs.
 have less craving for mineral substances than hens. and are indifferent to plaster.