Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1882 — SCIENTIFIC GOSSIP. [ARTICLE]

SCIENTIFIC GOSSIP.

Skins of the prairie dog, an aufami so abundant in Texas as to be a nuisance, are recommended a* a material for the manufacture of gloves. Severe tests of 3,794 large blocks of artificial ashlar, used largely in» constructing the port of Flume, tbe rival of Trieste, Austria, the Engineering News says, showed only 19 to be imperfect. To detect fusel oil in alcohol Dr. A. Jorissen adds to 10 c. c. of the sample 10 drops of colorless aniline oil ana 2 to 3 drops of officinal hydrochloric acid. If fusel is present, a red color soon appears. Basic scorisß of the Bessemer retorts, Martin furnaces, etc., containing as they do from ID to 15 per cent, of phosphoric acid, M. Neujean thinks could be utilized with advantage in the manufacture of artificial manures. Mr. Joseph Thomson Is to be again sent to South Africa by the Geographical Society, of London, for the scientific examination, in particular, of the region around Mount Kilimanjaro. He will leave Great Britain to execute his mission in the early part of next year. Bordeaux, like Harve and Marseilles, is to have the harbor provided with boat elevators for the mechanical unloading of grain vessels. The steam motor is attached to an electric machine, thus permitting the elevators to be employed at night as lighthouses, which cast a bright light all over tne port. Villiers Stuart records that when the mummy of the great warrior Rhothmes 111. was unswathed the body was found to be unusually short and slight. Hardly had a rapid photograph been taken of the figure than the fragile remains, as if in protest against the violation of their rest vanished into dust, and took their departure like a dream. Two 90-foot lathes, supposed to be the largest in the world, the Scientific American says’ are now nearly completed by the South Boston It onworks for their own use. These pieces of machinery are made in six sections of 30 feet each. The heak stocks and face plates weigh 10 tons each, and each bed section 10 tons. The completed lathes will each contain 600,000 pounds of Iron. They are built specially for the boring out of cannon,but are adapted for all heavy lathe work. Last May a remarkable mirage was witnessed between 4 and 7 o’clock one afternoon at the Lake of Osra, Sweden, (latitude 61 degrees,) in a region, by the way, notable for phenomena of this kina. First large and small steamers were observed as if plying on the lake, and their outlines were very distinct. The funnels of the vessels seemed to emit smoke. Then a transformation occurred. In place of the ships there were yerdure-clsd islands. Lastly, haze came on and the wonderful spectacle ceased.

Probably one of the best illuminated thoroughfares In the world is the Bowery, New York, between Chatham square and Fourth street, at about Bor 9 o’clock in the evening. Almost every ocoupant of premises endeavors to attract attention to his wares by a liberal display of electric light, and to one traveling on the street cars the effect as a whole, is one of startling brilliancy. Not only , there, but in other parts of the City, persons having advertising objects in view are doing much to make the efforts of the various electric companies a commercial BUCC6BS. Some of the properties of hydrocyanic acid have been tested by M. Brame. Bodies of animals he had poisoned with it resisted decay very well for a whoie year, although the temperature was as high sometimes as 38 ° Centrigrade. Preserved in closed vessels they lose the peculiar bitter almond or peach-blossom odor of the acid, and acquire that of the formate of ammonia found in the sereus liquid. To embalm with the acid a little of some substance which absorbs v ater while hardening should be subsequently introduced. Oxygenated water, or preoxide of hydrogen, discovered by Thenard in 1818, is obtained by the action of sulphuric or hydrochloric acid on the ninoxide vs barium, and it is only during the last few years that it has been prepared commercially under sufficiently favorable conditions to come into general use. Its properties render it especially suitable for the bleaching of animal substances, such as wool, feathers, ivory, Ac. The objects to be bleached must first, however, be freed from grease and other impurities to obtain a satisfactory result. During the meeting of the Anthropological Jnstitute, London, on June 13, considerable interest was excited by an exhibition of a series of figures carved In steatite and micaschist, forming part of a collection discovered by Mr. Mann 8. Valentine/of Richmond, Va. Mr. Valentine stated that in all he had about 2,000 specimens, consisting of cups, household utensils, representations of various animals, Ac. What is particularly remarkable is that the human beings are carved with clothing, not nude, and are seen riding on animals and sitting in chairs, thus indicating an unexpected and remarkable advance in civilization, and in some instances obvious traces of early contact with Europeans. Thomas W. Scott, alias Wells, native of Indianapolis, said to be a fugitive from justice' having murdered a man in Mississippi eight years ago, poisoned himself at Little Rock.