Elk City mining news. (Elk City, Idaho) 1903-1913, 1906-08-04
|PoPuls s



by dipping strip of calico in solu
usn OF one part of cobalt chloride
seventy-fve OF nickel oxide and twenty
or gelstine In two hundred of water
The strip Is green in fine weather
fading as moisture appears.
An Italian scientist has Invented a
novel substitute for Irrigation. HS
Uses the fruit OF the Barbary nopaI,
ng tree which bears figs that are
excellent reservoirs of moisture. In
the spring the scientist digs a ditch
about the foot of the tree he desires
TO protect from the coming drought
and this ditch is filed with figs cut
INTO thick pieces. A dense layer is
made and beaten down. The mucilag-
nous pulp, covered with earth, stores
up much moisture, which 1t gives of
gradually, watering the tree sometimes
for as long period as four months.
The light of the FREELY is believed
to have an efficiency of virtually 100
per cent Of the energy expended,
whereas recent tests indicate that the
light efficiency of the ordinary mean
descent lamp is only 90 per cent;
the rest Of the energy is expended In
heat which is not needed.
inventors do not yet despair of sue
cess In Initiating the firefiy's economi-
cal method of producing an illumina-
non. In recent paper F. c. Caldwell
says that 1t is well within the range
OF possibility that we may see the
transmission OF light-producing energy
done away with, and a return
made to some form of portable lamp.
consuming an exceedingly small
amount of material, and producing a
cold or frefy-like, light.
If the earth, says Prof. E. Ruther-
ford, were supposed to have been com.
posed, inidally, of pure radium,' the
activity 10000 years later would not
be greater than the activity observed
N pitchblende to-day. But, since there
s no doubt that the earth's age vastly
exceeds 10000 years, it is necessary,
n order to account for the existence of
'adium at all in the earth. to suppose
hat 1t Is continuously produced from
'ome other substance. At the present
line 1t seems most probable that ura-
hum is this parent substance. The
observed activity In a good specimen |
II pitchblende is about what sbould |
'e expected If the uranium contained |
n 1t spontaneously breaks I'D into
adium. Radium itself is continuously
transformed into an emanation which.
n turn, Is changed into other types
Il matter, and there is no evidence
hat the process is reversible.
A portable electric plant for fixing
ails and packing sleepers, the inven-
ion OF A. Collet of Paris. is in use
several French railways. The ap-
aratus runs on wheels adaptable for
roads or railway tracks, and
1cludes twenty-five horse power en-
Inc, which is coupled by a belt to the
ynamo that generates electric cur
ent. Steam is supplied by a vertical
lbular boiler of capacity of only
ia gallons. The engine being in
lace, a copper circuit is carried along
he permanent way three-fifths of a
Tile on folding ladders, and a con-
nuous current of 22O volts is led to
lie track-laying machines. With two
God screw machines on a small truck.
'ur men lay 1877 yards of track In
N minutes, setting two hundred
'rews, this being seven times the
tie by hand. The sleeper-packing
'ol gives four hundred strokes per
mute, and enables six men to pack a
eeper in broken stone in one minute
: in sand in thirty-fiye seconds