Amador ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Calif.) 1875-19??, 1908-05-01

Though flax is grown on 1000, 600
acres in the United States, only the
seed is utilized, and millions of tons
of fax straw are burned yearly be-
cause the high cost of labor has made
linen manufacture failure. The
straw must be retted, scutched,
heckled, softened and bleached in
about thirty processes before the
finished fabric is ready for the
market. The retting or rotting pro-
cess, as followed in Europe, alone re-
quiIes from sixteen to thirty weeks.
Adopting a combined mechanical and
chemical method of disintegration,
Benjamin q. Nudge, of the Mass
achusetts Institute of Technology,
greatly reduces the labor and time
necessary, and by processes yielding
cloth from the straw in twelve hours,
he expects to create an American
linen industry. lie removes the gum
and softens the tangled mass, reduc-
ing il to glossy, white and tough
fiber. The European method yields
only $40 pounds of fiber per ton of
straw, wasting the seed and other
materials, but the new process claims
500 pounds of fiber to the ton, and
also converts the waste in part into
paper pulp and saves the tow.
"Cafeinless coffee" is late Ger
man product, made by dlssolving out
coffee. The flavor, aroma and ap-
pearance are practically unaffected,
and but slight change can be detected
even in chemical composition. The
effects upon users have been most re-
inarkable. All harmful influence has
disappeared, and strong infusions are
used with impunity by nervous,
dyspeptic and other sufferers from
catfein poisoning.
The determination of the birds, the
policemen of the air." is possible
calamity of an extent not easily con-
ceived Competent authority pre-
diets that it would not only make
successful agriculture impossible but
would be followed by destruction of
nearly all vegetation.
Tho rediscovery of lost art is
claimed by Frank Della Tore, of
Baltimore, in a gum varnish that
seems to be Identical with the old
Italian varnish that made the violin a
successful musical instrument. In
the time of Columbus the transparent
orange-red varnish was used for the
gondolas of Venice, but in the SIX
teenth century sumptuary edict
made black compulsory for gondolas,
and a quantity of this varnish was
made available for the new industry
of Cremona, and was used exclusively
by Amati, Guarnerius and Stradi-
varius until the supply was exhausted
about 1880. The material seems to
have been made from colored gums
imported from tropical Africa. On
the violin the varnish had a distin-
gushing and remarkable effect in
damping out the upper harmonics,
leaving the pure fundamental tone,
and thus giving freedom from harsh
ness, with great carrying power. In
violins coated with the new varnish
all harshuess has been displaced, tests
showing very favorable comparison
with old Cremona violins.
Chemically pure nitrogen, hitherto
believed to be practically unobtain-
able, is now frozen out OF liquid air
in the new process of Prof II. Erd-
mann. When liquid air is evaporat-
ed at atmospheric pressure, the
nitrogen becomes gaseous at 1876 de-
grees below zero and the oxygen at
1872 degrees, and an intermediate tenn
perature causes nitrogen to distill off
in somewhat impure form. The
nearlyspure gas serves the purposes
for which nitrogen is ordinarily re-
quired. The new process makes it
possible to obtain the chemically
pure, which is done by placing
liquid air in good vacuum. when
the rapid vaporization of part of
the. liquid chills the remainder,
sollditying the nitrogen III crystals
that can be separated from the liquid
oxygen left.
Chromium prepared in the electric
furnace by MoisHan proved to be
slightly soluble in molten copper.
Further Investigation has revealed a
new form of chromium, which is
crystalline, has density of IL, is