Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1887 — INDUSTRIAL. [ARTICLE]

INDUSTRIAL.

More power, it i» stated, is distributed in Boston by electricity than in •any other American city, IT pot In the world. - . . Mr. H. Lindsay Buckall.of London, announces that the glass railway sleepers devised by him were recently tested at the w'orks of the Anderson Foundry Company, Glasgow, and resisted a falling weight of 3.1 cwt., placed, upon sleepers set in sand ballast. Crude petroleum is now used in many places for generating steam in the boilers of thrashing machines. It is preferred to any kind of fuel, as it produces no sparks which are likely to set grain stacks on fire. As the furnace for burning oil is small, the weight of the apparatus is less than that in which coal and wood are consumed. A Birmingham (Conn.) electrician has a new rat trap which, it is said, works admirably. He attaches a piece of meat to one pole of a dynamo machine, which can only be reached by the rat by standing" on a plate,, which serves as the other pole, lieport says that no rat has yet got the meat, but many have reached for. it, and the inventor is rewarded for his ingenuity with a large collection of dead rats. As a rule, in building stables too little attention is given to securing light and ventilation, two most important aids in keeping stock healthy. It is , strange that when these can be had so easily barns are so often very defective and unhealthy for lack of them. Animals should have light, comfortable quarters, not only because it is more pleasant and easier to care for them in such barns, but because they give better returns for the. food [‘consumed in such healthy quarters. An appliance, being a valve for prepcciaiting an explosion of a wa,ter-back, fchiWriccessfully used in Montreal. It " e ica ‘ '‘fits of a disk of thin sheet-lead, .led by an annular cup against a 4d nipple, which is screwed into. TT° of the water-back. In the ut of the pipes freezing, a fire being „arted in the range, the steam pressure generated will blow out this lead disk and relieve the apparatus. The pipes being thawed a new disk can be readily inserted. The nipple and cap are made of brass. —American Archited.

Sandpaper is at present made with powdered glass instead of sand. Glass is readily pulverized bv heating it red hot and throwing it into water, and finishing the powdering in an iron frame mortar. By the use of sieves of different sizes of mesh the powder ■can be separated into various grades, from the finest dust to very coarse, and these should be kept separate. A strong paper is tacked down and covered with a strong size of glue, and the surface covered with powdered glass of the desired fineness; when the glue is dry the surplus glass is shaken or brushed off. .Muslin is better than paper and lasts much longer. The Age of Steel publishes a summary of the statistics collected by the American Iron A Steel Association in the nail trade. These statistics show that exclusive of railroad spikes and hotseshoe nails our total production of cut nails and cut spikes in 1886 was 8,160,978 kegs of 100 pounds each, against 6,696,815 kegs in 1885, 7,581,379 kegs in 1884, and 7,762,747 kegs in 1883. The production of 1886 was the largest the country has ever attained. The increase in 1886 over 1885 was partly due to the settlement , of the nailers’ strike June 25 and partly to the prosperous cofidition of the country during the whole of the year. A common trouble with us all is that we fail in our business because we think little of it. No man truly succeeds in any calling who has a poor opinion- of it. No man has a good’ opinion of his business who uses it only to make money*sut of it. No man can have the best conception of his business who does not; esteem it for its usefulness. And the higher we go—if “higher" and “lower’ji are proper terms to use in considering the different honorable and useful walks of life—the more clearly will it appear that he who only festeems his business for the living or money that is in it must, if judged by any high standard, be a failure.— Dr. Hupgood. A Florida company, engaged in the manufacture of perfumery, has built a factory at 'Jacksonville, and next spring will start a 200 acre flower plantation. They now have one plantation at Ban Mateo, and are putting seven acres at Jacksonville, in. flowers. They have 5,000,000 flowering tuberose bulbs, and a good many hundred thousand rose geraniums, in addition to which they buy all the roses, yellow jasmines, orange blossoms, etc., that they can secure. This is an- industry that ought to prove profitable. It is another illustration of the diversification of the industrial interests of the South, and of the many openings for the manufacture of small things that the South offers. Some genius who is wintering in the bush up on Squaw Mountain near Moosehead Lake, Me., and corresponds for the Monson Slate, has been figuring the amount of muscular exertion required to cut 4| millions of lumber. This is the way he states it: By careful reckoning it is found that the average number of blows required to fell an average tree is about 500, and the average distance travelled by theaxetna blow twelve feet 'Bhern we have 36,000 trees, by 500 blows to ■the tree, equals 180,000,000, total number of blows; 18,000,000 by twelve feet, distance travelled by the axe at •each blow, equals 2,160,000,000 feet, total distance traversed by the axe. Or, in other words, the axe travels 40,309 mile 3 2 rods 15 feet in cutting -36,000 trees, or 4£ million feet of lumber,—industrial Journal. t &