Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1909-1911, 1909-03-12
items of interest

les III Germany Is considering the erec-
ton of separate plant for the manufac-
ture of aeropiaAes and other forms Of
airships.
A machine operated on the principle
of the vacuum cleaner is being used to
pick walnuts in California grove. Two
men operate it, saving the work of eight
more.
The Bank of England is experiment.
ing with new Swiss counting machine
which is said to sort and pack money
into bags or tubes at the rate of $4,000
CONS per hour.
One-fifth of the sugar raised in the
United States is produced at home, one
fifth is brought from our islands and the
remainder is imported from foreign
countries.
The AaTOnautic society Of Great Brit
Iain has acquired tract of ground half
a mile square, which Will be completely
fitted up for experimental work with
airships.
The August meteors, according to a
leading astronomer, form a steam SO
broad that the earth, though it travels
faster than eighteen miles a second
takes seven weeks to cross it.
While the seeds of the dorowa, an East
African leguminOus tree are extensively
used for food, the pods and leaves form
an excellent cement when mixed with
crushed stone.
Though it is estimated that gramme
OF radium contains energy equal to one
horsepower for fifteen days, it parts with
it so slowly that it would take $1,000
years to exhaust itself.
The largest chimes in the world are
being installed in the tower of tho Met
ropolitan Life Insurance company's
building at New York The four bells
weigh 1900 1000, 5000 and 1000 pounds.
An English company, which has sunk
half million dollars in the past eight
years in trying to mine gold in the West
Indian Island of Aruba, has sold out for
$4,000 to local capitalists.
Near Calcutta natural gas has been is
suing from a crevice in the rocks and
burning, according to the natives. for
centuries. 1t is now proposed to ex-
tinguish the fire and utilize the gas.
The abandonment of goats milk as an
article of diet by all Europeans living on
the island of Malta has completely elm
mated a disease KNOWN as Maltese fever
and made the island one of the most
healthful in the Mediterranean.
Asia is believed to hold in reserve more
coal than is in all the other coal fields Of
Europe and North America combined.
In northern China alone there are be-
lieyed to be 100000, 100000 tons.
The light intensity Of moonIess night
is estimated at OO1 candle foot, of moon
light at OLA candle-foot, and of full day
light at from 1000 to 5000 candle-feet,
depending upon the clonds.
A new twin-screw gunbOat for the
British navy, though 100 feet long by "a
feet inches, draws but 80 inches and is
composed of nine flOatable sections,
which may be united when afioat.
For the general advancement of the
shellfish industry, which yields nearly
s50,O0O,OOO year, a national association
has been formed by the shellfish commits
siOnerb of the seventeen states interested.
Alaska's mineral output for 1908 is es-
timated at $19,6OO,0OO, more than mil
lion less in value than in 1907. The de-
creases were in gold and copper, all
other industries showing gains.
The recent discovery by a French
chemist of simplifed method of wood
distillation, it is said, will greatly
cheaper the production of acet0ne.
A government prOspectOr who was
searching for coal in the south Of India
discovered valuable deposit Of tantal
ite, the first found in that country.
The brown coal Of the Australian state
of Victoria has been found to be rich in
ammonia sulphates and to be we'll adapt
ed to making producer gas.