Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1893 — NOTES AND COMMENTS. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Colonel H. W. Feii.den, in the course of an interesting paper on animal life in East Greenland, contributed to the February number of the Zoologist, suggests, as he has done before, that the musk ox might with advantage be introduced into Great Britiyn. He sees no reason why it should not thrive on the mountains of the Highlands of Scotland. In the winter season the musk ox is covered with a long-stapled fine wool besides its coat of hair. This wool is of a light yellow color, and as fine as silk. Sir John Richardson states that stockings made from this wool were more beautiful than silk ones. Young musk oxen are very easily reared and tamed, and Colonel Feilden thinks there could! not be any great difficulty in catching either old or young in Jameson’s Land. The government has lately introduced the reindeer from Russia into Alaska. It would not be a bad idea to try an importation of the musk ox from Greenland.

The great advance that has been made in the metallurgy of aluminum within the past ten years is one of the most hopeful signs of the application of scientificprinciples to commercial problems. When one recalls the status of this matter in 1880, when aluminum was but little more than a plaything, and an expensive one at that, and then refers tothe present condition of the industry, he is impressed with two considerations. First, that so much has been done tocheapen the processes for the extraction of this metal from its ores, and, second, that in all probability the methods now in use will be discarded before 1000. A great deal of laborious and costly work has been done, and the result is that aluminum cau be bought for fifty cents per pound as against sl2 in 1880. * The experiment of the eight-hour day, or rather of making forty-eight hours a week’s work, is now being tried in one of the largest iron works in England, the Salford works at Salford, which is a suburb of Manchester. The working hours at these works have heretofore been fifty-three per week, and the reduction is made on an understanding with the men that the output of the works shall not be diminished by this shortening of the hours. The men are to be punctual and energetic, and to save the owners from loss because of this shortening of hours, by greater industry. There is to be no reduction of wages, and if the epd of a year finds the experiment successful the forty-eight-hour week will be the ]>ermanent arrangement. Tiie sugar possibilities of Florida are so great and sugar so important an article to our country that the United States Department of Agriculture has established an experimental station on the shore of East Lake, opposite St. Cloud, to thoroughly investigate the subject. There have been introduced from all parts of the world 83 varieties of cane and their relative merit and adaptability will be thoroughly tested, and every method of cultivation will be applied and the subject most thoroughly treated in every way and the results handed to the people. In order to fully carry out this work a most splendid experimental factory has been built, so that no pains will be spared to make the investigations complete.

If the present spirit of enterprise continues to manifest itself in Arizona, that Territory’s vast tracts of desert land will soon be transformed into one of the chief sources of its wealth. Within a comparatively short time quite a number of irrigation projects have been inaugurated, having for their object the reclamation of districts varying in area from a few thousands to hundreds of thousands of acres. The latest project for which contracts for the construction of reservoirs and canals have already been placed, contemplates bringing into agricultural and horticultural use 300,000 acres in the Gila river valley, and will involve an expenditure of more than $2,000,000. The Austrian engineer Werner has patented an invention which bids fair to turn the labor of a stoker, or steamboat fireman from the hardest, ugliest, and most unhealthy sort of toil iuto a mere child’s play occupation. His plan consists.in pulverizing bituminous coal and feeding it to the furnaces by means of a pear-shaped “distributor,”* self-acting, under ordinary circumstances, but Withal amenable to the control of the operator. Experiments have proved that coaldust, poured into a strong blaze, will burn almost without a residuum. There will be no raking of ashes and clinkers, next to no smoke, and the apparatus can be worked without approaching the hades of the furnace door.—[Weekly Review. The number of sheep and lambs in the United Kingdom in 1892 was 33.642,808, against 29,401,750 —five years previously an increase of 4,241,058 head. The average value, however, is computed at only 21 shillings 1} pence in 1892, against 2G shillings 2f pence in 1887, and with this loss of 0 shillings 1 pence per head the sheep of Great Britain show a ’falling off in value of nearly £3,000,000 notwithstanding their increase in numbers!

The latest development of steam shipbuilding is the whalebaek, of American invention. Two steel ships of this type are to be built in England for the American Steel Barge Company. One is to be a steamship and the other a towbarge, with a combined carrying capacity of 9,003 tons. They will be used in the iron ore trade between Cuba and Philadelphia, and are to be ready for their first trip in July next. The railroad mileage of Connecticut is greater according to area than any country of Europe except Belgium. Delaware, Illinois, lowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania have, each of them, a larger trackage to the square mile than Germany, France or Holland and each of the states except lowa and New York, has a larger relative trackage than Great Britain. On a single day recently the Scilly islands sent to English markets ten and a half tons of flowers. This striking fact shows the amazing progress of an industry which was unknown r, dozen years ago in the little archipelago. The inhabited islands contain only between three and four thousand acres altogether.