Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1901 — SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL. [ARTICLE]

SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

Cultivating ordinary honey bees to a modern apartment house has been accomplished in Chicago. One enterprising individual has found that the bee keeps just as busy storing away nectar in a home on the third floor as in a hollow tree in the woods.

A human body contains some of the small things of nature. The blood, for example, Is a colorless liquid, in which little red globules are floating. Every drop of It contains about a million of the globules, and they are susceptible of division into smaller globules still.

Cholera and yellow fever have been robbed of their terror In cities where sanitation is duly regarded; the poison of typhoid and diphtheria has been conquered, aijd the bacillus of consumption Is being hunted to its lair. All this has modern medical science accomplished, and scientific men are now predicting that in the not-dlstant future all disease-breeding germs will be wholly exterminated 1' all civilized lands.

Grover Hashman, a poultry raiser in Ohio, claims to have made a discovery which may revolutionize the present inconvenient method of shipping eggs. He has invented an egg shell which is elastic and unbreakable. He has done away with lime as a diet for hens, and instead feeds them with pulverized rubber mixed with cornmeal. This forms a rubber film around each egg, and the sulphur contained in the egg vulcanizes the soft rubber Into hardness

It has been no easy task to keep the great Suez Canal from being choked by the shifting sands, blown Into its waters by the tropic winds. The management of the canal, however, after long experiments with different plants, believes that It has found In the Casuarina tree an effective remedy against the sands. The Casuarina grows to a considerable height, while Its roots penetrate the soil to water sources deeply hidden; moreover, It thrives in both dry and humid climates.

Included In the vessels under construction for the British Navy are two rather shallow draught twin-screw gunboats, each of which is to have a length of 160 feet, a beam of twenty and a half feet and a draught of two and a quarter feet. They are to have a speed of thirteen knots each when completely equipped, and it is reported that they are intended for service on the Chinese rivers. They are to be sent out in flotable sections, the same as was done with the steamer built for the Belgian Congo expedition, in which Stanley took the lead. This avoids the difficulties and delays incidental to riveting and launching in foreign waters, as they are simply put into the water and bolted together.

The largest switchboard In the world Is for the new United States Mint at Philadelphia. Electricity describes it as follows: “The switchboard is entirely constructed of marble, copper and steel and is six feet high and thirty-six feet long. There are eighteen slabs of pink Tennessee marble, each one and a half inches thick. There are forty-two double and triple pole switches, which range from 100 to 1600 amperes. There are seventy-eight circuit breakers and many meters, all of which combine to make.the board an example of mechanical construction. The copper required to connect the generators or dynamos with different switches and current breakers weighs over two tons and the board complete as it will stand weighs ten tons. The board will carry 5000 amperes at 110 volts, equal to 10,000 sixteen candle power lights. The switches have been arranged so that each will turn on either light or power, as may be desired. This was necessary, as there will be no other power aside from electricity used in the new mint building.”