The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1904-08-20


TORPEDO PowER--MILK WITH N0N-SEPA-
RATING CREAM-AN INDUSTRIAL DREAM
How WORKING POWER VARIES "A
MYSTERIOUS BIRD CATAsTRoPHE-WEIRD
ENVIRONMENT "A NEW THEORY OF
MARs-HARAdLEss SURGERY.
The ordinary Whitehead or automobile
torpedo consists of a cigar-shaped steel
cylinder about eighteen inches in diam
eter and eighteen feet long, which car
ries in its forward end about 200 pounds
of high explosive with a percussion fuse,
while the central portion is a reservoir
for air at pressure of 1900 pounds per
square inch and the rear end contains
the compressed air motor driving the
propellers. A gyroscopic rudder keeps
the torpedo on a straight course. The
air supply lasts about minute, driving
the torpedo half mile, and as this speed
is exceeded by some cruisers and other
vessels there is risk that vessel may
overtake a torpedo fired while at full
speed from its own PROV. To guard
against this danger is the purpose of
Hudson Maxim's late invention. With
motorite, a fuel somewhat resembling
smokeless powder, he instantaneously gen.
crates steam for the torpedo engine, doub-
ling the ordinary power, and ensuring
a speed beyond the swiftest cruiser or
torpedo-boat destroyer.
The process of homogenizing milk-per-
fected by Gaulin of Paris-consists in
forcing the milk, at about 1852 F., from
a closed drum in very fine jets against a
porcelain plate. The fat globules are
broken up into very minute particles.
There is no subsequent tendency for cream
to rise, digestibility is not affected, and
when combined with pasteurization, the
treated milk keeps long time unchanged.
The cost of concentrating the force of
sea waves must ever prevent the utiliza-
ton of wave power, in the opinion of
v. Martinez, a French engineer. The
elevation of floats is only moderate and
it takes long time, so that the appa-
ratus is very expensive for small power.
"A new branch of science, called "psy-
chomechanics," has received especial at
tention in France from DIR. Charles Fere.
His results show that a man has great
err capacity for average than for either
intense or feeble work, and that ones
powers vary greatly with mental condi-
TONS Contrary to general belief, mental
work does not rest one who is physically
tired, or vice versa. Capacity for work
increases to a certain degree with heating
of the head; light has stimulating ac-
ton and darkness depresses; even colors
have some influence, while sounds have
a complex and variable effect; and odor
and taste seem to stimulate and then
depress to a greater degree. Digestion,
aside from the assimilation, dimin-
ishes muscular work. Most nerve-poisons
including opium, hasheesh, valerian, al
cohol, tobacco, coffee and tea-produce
transitory stimulation, and this is followed
by depression, which diminishes the total
work.
A singular destruction of birds is puz-
zling the naturalists of North Wales. AT
high tide on the morning of March 18th,
thousands of thrushes, starlings and black
birds were thrown up dead along sew
eral miles of the shore of Cardigan Bay,
and many others were noticed in help
less and exhausted condition. Some I'M
known action of electricity is included
in the numerous explanations offered. Mr..
c. w. Herbert Greaves finds that melting
SHOWS had produced a food, and he sug-
gests that the birds were washed to sea
at night on bushes, being then unable to
reach Shore
Water is often thought to be almost
absolutely incompressible, but Prof. TAFT
has now calculated that the ocean would
rise 116 feet higher than at present if
it were not compressed by its own weight.
We are indebted to this compression,
therefore, for 100000 square miles of
our dry land.
Investigating reported discovery, DIR.
Greet, of Berlin, has proven that radium
offers no hope whatever of aiding the
blind to see.
To us the worlds strangest arena of
life is the deep sea, whose animals have
welI-marked distinctions. DIR. Apitzach
finds that five important conditions affect
the life forms, Viz. the great water pres
sure, the low temperature, the chemical
condition of the water, the lack of vege-
tation, and the lack of sunlight. Because
of the low temperature Arctic animals
appear in deep waters of the tropics. The
deep water is deficient in oxygen, rich
in carbonic acid, and lacks calcium
the last-named peculiarly giving soft
shells to the crustacea and cartilaginous
skeletons to the fish. The existence of
plant-eating animals is made possible by
the material falling from above. Lack
of sunlight causes absence of eyes or very
prominent eyes-the purpose of the latter
being to recognize the phosphorescence
of some of the animals. Red and black
are the common of the animals
The so-called canals of Mars are regard
ed as an illusion by many astronomers, but
by others are supposed to represent vege-
tation-possibly cultivated by inhabitants.
A new theory is offered by A. Baumann,
an engineer of Zurich. He supposes that
Mars has a solid, brittle crust everything
a more elastic nucleus and that as the
crust contracts it cracks. Experiment has
proven that points of greatest pressure
would show double cracks The right
angled canals indicate a homogeneous
crust and the absence of mountains is
attributed to long continuance of the sur
face in a plastic state.
At London hospital needles have been
removed from the body in several hum
dred cases by simple manipulation with
the fingers. The needle is first located
by means of X-rays, and the flesh over
one end is then pressed and released
repeatedly, the needle being thus caused
to travel to the skin in the direction of
its finer end. There is little pain, and
no suppuration.
A NIGHT IN CHINATOWN.
Editor Baltimore Methodist.