The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-04-21
NEWEST NOTES OF SCIENCE

A solution of eight ounces each of sugar of lead and alum in two and half gallons of luke warm water is said to render almost any garment water proof without injuring the fabric.
 The wilds of northern Alaska will be explored during the next two years by a party of scientists sent out by the University of Chicago and the United States Photographic Office.
 The first scientist to search for primeval fossils of vegetable life in Japan, an English woman, has return ed home with specimens which she as- serts are at least 1000 900 years old.
 Wax from the cande1illa plant, which grows in great abundance in Mexico, is said to be available for candles, var nish, shoe polish, talking machine rec ords and as an insulating material.
 To save wear and tear of talking machine discs. an Iowa man has pat ented a magnet to be placed in such a position to take up the particles of steel ground off the point of the needle.
 Gold mining in Georgia, first at tempted by the Spanish explorers, who learned from the Indians that mug gets were to be found in the streams, has been carried on continuously since 1925.
 When a hurricane blows at the rate of 100 miles an hour the air moves with a velocity of $500 feet per minute, or 1466 feet per second, and with a pres sure of 49, POO pounds per square foot
 An association has been formed in Germany to establish national chemical laboratory. Prussia has ten dered a sit free, and the Federal Gov ernment will be asked for substantial financial assistance.
 An investigation by Federal and State experts, covering three years, has resulted in a report that Maine pos. sesses immense resources of peat, Of excellent quality for fuel and other
 Careful tests by Canadian scientists show that the great Victoria glacier Tn Alberta moves about 66 feet a year, the summer movement being about half again as rapid as the winter.
 All clocks in Russian railroad sta- tions carry four hands, pair of black ones to denote the time by the mer1d- ian of St. Petersburg, the national standard, and two red ones to mark the local time.
 A new English blast furnace for the manufacture of pig iron is said to util- ize S1.7 per cent of the heat, whereas a common coke crucible furnace em- ployed in making steel uses but 1.4S per cent
 The tomb and mummies of Kha, ar chitect and engineer of the mighty buildings at Thebes, and of his wife, recently were discovered in the Valley of the Queens, Egypt, by an Italian Psychologist.
 A new insulating material discovered by an English scientist, in a coal tar by-product, is said to be stronger than rubber, to stand higher temperature, and to be unaffected by most cneml- calls.
 The first recorded use of the word kerosene was in a United States pat ent issued in 1855 to a man who claim ed to have invented and discovered a Eew liquid hydrocarbon to which he applied the name.
 Because of it's soft character and straight grain, no good substitute for red cedar has ever been found for the manufacture of lead pencils, 32O,OOO,- 900 of which are made annually in this country.
 An inverted rainbow recently was seen from the Eiffel tower. This rare phenomenon, heretofore observed only on mountains, is due to the observer being above instead of below the re- fracting raindrops.
 The New Jersey State Hospital for the Insane is having much success in treating violent patients by keeping them for several hours a day in baths in which the water s kent at a tenn perature of 95.