Amador ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Calif.) 1875-19??, 1909-01-22

Whether bee-stings are an effective
remedy for rheumatism, as has been
SO often asserted, seems to be a matter
of widespread curiosity and uncer-
tdinity. DR.. A. Walker, of Oxford
University, has been lately collecting
facts from physicians and others,
and, in addition to popular reports,
he has obtained some very precise
evidence that bee poison really cures
rheumatic pains. Perhaps the most
conclusive report is that of DR.. Tere,
of Marburg. Syria. In twenty years
this physician has used bee stings "a
more than 700 cases, and has found
that three or four operations give
immunity to the pain and swelling
from the stings, and that single
treatment may sometimes cure rheu-
matism, although old cases may re-
qulre hundreds of stiugs. Believing
that formic acid is the active agent,
DR.. Lamarche has tried hypodermc
injections of this su bstance Oh rheu-
matte patients with good results. AS
this theory does not seem to be con-
clusively established, however. DR..
Walker is inclined to attribute the
curative action to neutralizing of
the rheumatic poison by some special
toxin introduced by the bees.
The view has sbeen advanced by
number OF German physicians that
most people in large cities pass the
winter months in a state of chronic
intoxication from carbonic oxide. j.
p. Langlois, French authority, is
inclined to accept this theory, and
condemns as unhygienic the practice
of heating by hot-air stoves and the
use of gas for lighting.
The acetylene lighted buoys of the
Swedish coast keep in action ~ days
without renewal of the single tubes
Of 81 llters of dissolved acetylene.
Ingenious automatic lighting makes
this possible. A bright rejecting sur
face and black bsorbing one give
unequal expansion by daylight. thus
closing valve and shutting off the
gas, but at night this action ceases,
the valve opens. and the gas, auto
matically lighted, continues burning.
The new tunnel boring machine of
x. +. Terry of New York, and o. S.
Proctor of Denver, is kind of gig
antic anger that chips its way through
solid rock by means of pneumatic
chlsel headed hammers. 1t is expect |
ed to prove capable of doing some
thing like 200 times the work of an
ordinary air drill, with one-tenth of |
the proportionate power, and recent |
test indicated that an S-foot tunnel
could be driven through granite y |
lIneai feet in 20 hours. The cost of |
removing 5000 cubic feet per day is
estimated at $500. The machine de-
signed has an Sfoot dill head. with |
20 hammers. which are arranged to |
cut in concentric overlapping circles,
so that the lock will be clipped away
over the entire face OF the excavation.
The rock fragments are caught in
steel pockets and carried to the rear
by conVeyor. The frame of the
the forward one of the two wheels and
the rear one of the four, the latter
running on 22-inch gauge track,
with rack rail in the center. A
spur gear meshing into the rack rail
drives the whole machine forward,
A compressed air engine on the rear
truck turns the feed gear, another
uir engiue on the forward part OF the
frame rotates the drill head, and air
fer the hammers is carried through
the hollow driving shaft. In making
a tunnel of the usual size-say Is or
20 feet - the 9-foot hole would be en-
Iarged by tina ordinary drilling aud
Blasting,
Sllundum, a new silicon arbidc
brought out in Germany, is substi-
tute for platinum for some heat re-
sisting aud other apparatus. In a
vacuum, silicon vaporizes at 1900
deg, to 1900 deg, g., aud the vapor
unites with carbon to form sllundum.
The new material resists temperatures
up to 1850 deg. or 1900 deg. G. 1t is
very hard, unattached by acids IN the
cold or by chlorine, and may be
enamelled or nickel plated, A disad
vantage is that it is destroyed by
molten metals.
curious and unexpected danger is
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