Amador ledger., 1910-07-01

Resinite, one of several recent sub
stitutes for celluloid, is reported to
Consul T. H. Norton, of Chemnitz, to
be finding variety of useful applica-
tions in the German art industries.
Various notifications are produced by
the union of formaldehyde with car
bolic acid in connection with certain
metallic salts, and the name is derived
from the resemblance of one kind to
ordinary resin. Impregnation with
this particular sort gives hardness and
impermeability to wood, pasteboard
and other porous materials, ordinary
pine being made so hard that it rapidly
dulls planer. Another variety is
a liquid that can be poured into moulds,
and coagulates into transparent,
ruby tinted fusible solid, that is well
adapted for imitation jewelry and
other ornaments, and is an unalterable
material for such uses as doorplates,
street numbers and signs. Another
liquid modification is solicited in few
minutes by mineral acid. 1t becomes
hard and homogeneous, can be easily
cut and polished, and can be made to
serve a wide range of purposes in
place of horn, celluloid, vegetable
ivory, and other substances. A very
important advantage is non-combus-
tibility.
That it is possible to determine sex
from handwriting in perhaps 80 cases
out of 100 is conclusion reached by
Miss June E. Downey from an ex-
animation of the writing of 200 per-
sons. The specimens were submitted
to two professional psychologists as
well as to Is persons ignorant of their
art. The so-called sex signs are found
to be largely influenced by the amount
of writing done, by age and to GER
tain extent by practice, and by pro-
fessional requirements, as in the con-
ventional writing of teachers and the
rapid hand of bookkeepers.
With the passing of empiricism and
quackery in electrotherapy, Sir James
Grant, Canada's distinguished physi-
clan, foresees the general scientific use
of electricity for correcting debility,
the result of defective blood power and
imperfect assimilation. For his own
work in the electrical repair of dimi-
nished vitality he claims marked sue
cess.
A collection of 107 species of living
nolds and allied fungi is the unique
or botanical garden of the
Paris School of Pharmacy. M. Bainier
mas patiently separated each from the
others, maintaining pure cultures by
sowing the spores ON a suitable
with prepared licorice root as
the basis. Each growth, renewed as
necessary, covers its special piece of
icorice root in a sterilized bottle of
Bohemian glass about 8 inches in di
ameter and 8 inches high. Some of
the species of fungi are common on
foods and on various kinds of decay
ing animal and vegetable matter,
others give characteristic favors to
vacious kinds of cheese, others produce
fermented liquor from rice, and some
are disease parasites of birds and in
sects-a few being active destroyers
IF troublesome insect pests. Greatly
varied in form and color, the speci-
mems form curious and beautiful ex-
nibition, which is at the same time of
great scientific interest.
The common impression that uncul-
tivated plants are richer in active
principles than cultivated plants has
led to an investigation by Chevalier, a
French pharmacist, who shows that
the belief is result of unskillful Gull
tivation and unfavorable soil. Proper
methods and suitable fertilizers nearly
always give drug at least equal in
activity to that from the wild growing
plant. In cultivating belladonna, for
instance, it is found that fertilizers
containing phosphates and potash have
little effect on the alkaloid in the
leaves, but heterogeneous fertilizers
cause a notable increase. With a mix
ture of farmyard manure and nitrates,
the percentageof alkaloid was more
than doubled.
A radium safe is necessarily a pecu-
liar continuance, as it must not only
be proof against burglars, but must
be able to hold substance that easily
passes through the thickest steel.
The new safe of the British Radium
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