Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1882 — CURIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC. [ARTICLE]

CURIOUS AND SCIENTIFIC.

Some French chemists have succeeded in soldifying petroleum, in <«rJach state it burns like tallow. This oj&uification is effected by adding to distilled petroleum 25 per cent, of the purified juice of plants belonging to the family of the Eupliorliacece. A Boston genius has invented a stoneeutting machine that was shown capable of performing in twenty-two minutes what a small army of men could not have accomplished in the same time. The invention will, it is thought, work a revolution in the granite-cutting trade. As to restoring frozen bodies, Knowledge says; “Laptclunski has made a series of very careful experiments upon dogs, with the following results: Of twenty animals treated by the method of gradual resuscitation in a cold room, fourteen perished; of twenty placed at once in a warm apartment, eight died; while of twenty immediately put into a hot bath, all recovered.” A Munich professor has invented a bracelet that will remedy the affliction known as “writer’s cramp.” The penholder is fastened to the bracelet in such a manner that it ean be used to write with ease and without bringing the fingers into use at all. The hand can rest on the table, moving easily along as the letters are traced, and it is said that little practice is required to give expertness in the use of the invention. Dull gold may be cleaned in this way: Take eighty- grams calcinm hypochlorite, eighty sodium bicarbonate, and twenty sodium chloride, and treat the mixture with three litres of distilled water. It must be kept for use in wellcorked bottles. Goods to be cleansed are put in a basin and covered with the mixture. After some time they are taken out, washed, rinsed in alcohol, and dried in sawdust. The articles then have the same appearance as if new. A priest named Luigi Galimberti, residing at Milin, Italy, is said to have discovered the means of photography in natural colors and the process for enlarging such photographic productions to life-size. Another process said to have been invented by him gives what he calls phosphorescent pictures, visible at night. The priest is so hampered by poverity that his experiments thus far have beon made at the expense of and for the benefit of a few personal friends.

The number of manufacturers of telescopes who are .able, even at the present day of scientific advancement, to produce the largest-sized glasses is very small, and even these instruments have an imperfection which has thus far proved insurmountable, namely, that of bringing the rays to a focus; they still have a little deflection, like the telescope of old, and though experiments innumerable have been made to meet this fault, it remains still unremedied. As, however, the difficulty is of a purely mechanical nature, it is presumable that it will be overcome in the telescope of the future. At the Munieh Electrical Exhibition one of the curiosities was a telephone transmitting music performed at OberAmmergau, over a distance of sixtythree miles. At the palace a huge telephonic arrangement brought over music from the English Case, so that the whole immense audience could hear the pieces quite distinctly. But perhaps the most significant exhibit was a single wire which conveyed electrical energy a distance of thirty-seven miles from the coal mines of Miesbacli, where it was generated. This augurs a future for the economical use of labor which may have far-reaching results. We confess that the two/points which have always struck our mind as distinguishing the nature of brutes from that of meh, has been their inability to worship God, and to kindle a fire. It would be folly to deny that brutes can reason. A sheep dog who wants to head a flock in a narrow lane will jump over a wall and run on the other side until he has reached the exact point occupied by the sheep at the head of the nock, and then jump back in order to drive them home. A collev, who was fond of going out with the carriage, would go and hide himself as soon as he heard the order for the carriage given, so that he might not be tied up. If we analyze these many other, instances of sagacity, we cannot help admitting that a brute’s miud is capable of two or three steps of reasoning. On the other had, no animal ever manufactured a tool or weapon, even of the simplest kind; and it is doubtful whether a gorrilla himself, who is supposed to be our nearest neighbor, uses a.walking-cane. —London Spectator.