The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1904-12-13


half feet long, driven by twenty-four
horse power gas engine, and carrying
oil for travelling 800 miles at ten to
\ twelve miles an hour. 1t is fitted up
with small machine shop, black
smiths shop and saddler's shop, while
| it carries spare parts likely to be need
ed by light battery on the march An
auxiliary engine on one side operates
a dynamo, lathe and grirdstone.
The deplorable summer waste Of
child life, especially in crowded cit
les, calls for scientific attention. A re-
! cent medical writer claims that the
| epidemic diarrhoea that proves so ia
| tai may be avoided by the following
| precautions: First, clean milk nip
| pies. Second, clean towns, with eff
| fective sewage removal, dust collection
and disposal and street watering.
Third Clean homes, with attention to
| food utensils, covering food from dust
and fiies, and personal habits, and
| fourth, destruction or exclusion of flies.
Prof. J.. w. Richards, of Lehigh Uni
versity, points out that although cal
cium is the next metal to iron in nat
ural abundance, chemists and metal
| lurgists are only Just beginning to ap-
previate it's possibilities The ore
costs but a few cents a ton for quar-
rying, since it occurs in inexhaustible
quantity, as pure calcium carbonate in
limestone, chalk and marble, and the
production of the metal is the special
task Of the eiectro-chemist. At tenn
peratures above red heat calcium is the
strongest metallic base, and Prof.
Richards believes that by its use many
problems may find their solution, such
as the complete deoxidation Of melted
metals and the reduction of rare eie-
inents. The metal calcium may also,
as aluminium has done, find many uses
in the arts.
Recent advances in the price OF
shelIae, due partly to its use IN cleo
trical works and in making grama-
phone records, have led 20 the collec-
ton of facts about it's production. Lac
is an incrustation on the branches Of
certain trees In India caused by in
sects. 1t is found throughout India,
but is most abundant in the Central
Provinces, Bengal and Assam, 1t is
collected by natives, who break Off the
incrusted branches. The gatherers
and local dealers sell it In the form of
stick lac" to manufacturers, who
turn it into shellac, or button lac" Of
commerce. Nearly the whole Of the
shipment takes place from Calcutta,
and the chief markets are the United
States and Great Britain. In India
lac Is made into bracelets, rings, beads
and other ornaments.
A curious motor, not likely to be put
to practical use, has been devised by
M. Leboyer, French experimenter.
After careful search he has discovered
stone, called the domite OF Au-
vergne, in which water rises by ca
pillary attraction to height Of four
inches. Placing two square sheets
Of this stone vertically in basin of
water, he suspends from them pieces
OF saltpetre soaked fungus, and be-
meath this puts a little wheel with
blotting paper paddles, AS the water
passes from the stone to the fungus,
the latter vets the blotting paper on
one side of the wheel, causing that side
to fall. Evaporation then Iightens the
lower Part of the Wheel while another
portion is made heavy by wetting, ro-
tatlon being thus set up, The rate vary
ing with the state cf the atmosphere.