Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1882 — POPULAR SCIENCE. [ARTICLE]

POPULAR SCIENCE.

Gerard-Leacuyer finds that when ths surreut from a dymmo-elsctrio rnacmne ** So.it Into a n*<ig»ieviO s.eoXric machine the latter moves with increasing speed, then it slackens, stops, and turns in the opposite direction,and so on. The polarity of the inductors is .reversed. J. A. Pabst publishes this continuous method of preparing acetic ether He introduces into a retort a (fold mixture of 55 c. c., of sulphuric acid, and the same quantity of alcohol. When the mixture has arrived at the temperature of 140 degrees centigrade, he allows to flow slowly into the retort a mixture of equal equivalents of alcohol and glacial acetic acid. At first a little sulphuric distils over, and there then passes a liquid containing 85 per cent, of acetic ether. An improvement on the Bunsen photometer has been devised by Herr Toe pier, and it is no longer necessary to use but one eye or that tho observer take a certain determined position. The ordinary thin sheet of paper with the oil-spot is replaced by two thin sheets of parchment paper placed one on each side of a stout sheet of paper perforated by a hole about an inch in diameter. The sheets are stretched on a frame between two sheets of clear glass. When the lights are properly opposed, the hole in this arrangement disappears, just as the oil-spot does in the old device, but with much less inconvenience to the observer. \ An exchange publishes the following as a means of silvering by cold rubbing : Make a paste by thoroughly grinding in a porcelain mortar, away from the light, water, 3 to 5 ounces; chloride of silver, 7 ounces; potassium oxalate, 10.5 ounces; common table salt, 15 ounces, and sal ammoniac, 3.75 ounces. Or, chloride of silver, 3j ounces; cream of tartar, 7 ounces; common table salt, 10.5 ounces, and water enough to form a paste. Keep the paste in a covered vessel, away from the light. Apply it with a cork or brush to the clean metallic (copper) surface, and allow,, it to dry. When rinsed in cold water the silver presents a fine frosted appearance, the brightness of which may be increased by immersion fora few seconds in di-lute-sulphuric acid, or in a solution of potassium cyanide. The silvering bears the action of the wire brush and of the burnishing tool very well, and it may also be “oxidized.” M. Lcsserteur, says the British Medical Journal, has just given publicity to a plant which has a great reputation as a cure for rabies in the kingdom of Annain. This plant, of which the name is hoang-nan, is a kind of liana, closely akin to tho false angostura; its effects are similar to those of strychnine and brucine. M. Bouley, in speaking of this new remedy in the Rcceutl de Medecine Vetermatre, regrets that no facts cofroborative of its efficaciousness are given, but is of opinion that the property recently shown to belong to rabbits, of easily contracting hydrophobia by inoculation, should be utilized for making experiments thus so easily performed. In reference to this subject, M. Bouley related an anecdote about garlic, a substance which has always bad a great reputation among remedies against rabies, and is constantly found as a principal integral portion in a largo number of formulas long kept secret. A young man had been bitten by a mad dog, and symptoms of rabies speedily appeared. His family, in a state of tho greatest alarm, scarcely khowing what to do with the sufferer shut him up in a loft where some garlic had been left to dry. In his delirium the poor follow seized the bundles of garlic, ate greedily of them, and spon became exhausted and fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke he was ?iired,and the symptoms of rabies had disappeared. A •*