Year: 1872

A WATERPROOF CEMENT OR NARN1sH.
The Chinese make many kinds OF
waterproof varnishes, one of which IS
compounded as follows: To three parts
of fresh, beaten defibrinated blood and
four parts of Stacked lime, add little
alumni and you have thin, sticking
mass which is Immediately ready for
use. If applied to any ordinary wood
en- box or even to a common straw
basket two or three times, the box or
basket will be perfectly water and oil
tight. A pasteboard box served with
this preparation assumes the consisten-
cy of board and becomes water and oil
tight. If this preparation is impervious
to kerosene, its value would be very
great. An experiment in that direction
by coating the inside of casks might
lead to important result.


TESTING LUBRIcATING OILs.-Some in
genious inventor has contrived an ap-
paratus to test the relative merit of lu-
bricating oils. The point is decided by
an indicator that registers the different
degrees of heat produced by the action
of the machinery during the test, the
heat revealing the relative amount of
friction, decides the merit of the lubri-
Gator used. The invention is to be pat
ented.


~ 1t frequently happens that paint
ers splash plate or other glass windows
when they are painting the sills. Soda
melted in very hot waters and applied
with a soft flannel will entirely remove
the paint. -


VERY HARD Some repairs
being required to the stone steps lead
ing to a garden, a French mason used
Portland cement mixed with finely di-
vided cast and wrought-iron filings. and
broken up borings, instead ofwith sand
The result has been that the mass has
become SO hard as not to admit of being
broken either with hammer or pickaxe.


w Wire rope is more than twice the
strength of hemp rope of the same cir
cumference. Splicing rope is suppos-
ed to weaken it one-eighth.


WANT OF DEcIsIoN.-A great deal Of
talent is lost to the world for the want
of little courage. Every day sends to
their graves number of obscure men,
who have only remained in obscurity
because their timidity has prevented
them from making a first effort, and
who, if they only had been induced to
begin, would, in all probability, have
gone great lengths in the career of fame.
The fact is, that, in doing we must not
stand shiyering on the bank, thinking
of the cold and the danger, but jump in
and scramble through as well as we can.
1t will not do to be perpetually calculat-
ing risks and adjusting chances; it did
very well before the flood, when man
could consult his friends upon an in
tended publication for hundred and
fifty years, and live to see its success
for six or seven centuries afterward; but
at present man doubts, and waits on
his brothers, and his uncles, and his
particular friends, till one day he finds
that he is sixty-fve years of age, that
he has lost SO much time in consulting
first cousins and particular friends that
he has no time to follow their advice.
There is so little time for oversqueam-
ishness at present that opportunity slips
away. The very period Of life at which
man chooses to venture, if ever, is SO
confined, that it is no bad rule to preach
up the necessity, in such instances, Of a
little violence done to the feelings, and
efforts made in defiance Of strict and
sober calculation.-Sidney Smith.


A BEAUTIFUL THOUGHT When engi-
neers would bridge stream they often
carry over at first but single thread.
With that they stretch a wire across.
Then strand is added to strand, until a
foundation is laid for planks, and now
the bold engineer finds safe footway and
walks from side to side. So God takes
from us some golden-threaded pleasure,
and stretches it hence into Heaven.
Then he takes child, and then friend.
Thus he bridges death, and teaches the
thoughts of the most timid to find their
way hither and thither between the two
spheres.


LABoR.--It is to labor, and labor only
that man owes everything possessed of