Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1891 — SCIENTIFIC SPLINTERS. [ARTICLE]

SCIENTIFIC SPLINTERS.

Aluminum at $1.25 per poun'd is the market. A boiler alarm that keeps automatic watch at all valves is a new invention. One of the most admirable uses to which rubber has been put is for horseshoes. ===== ■. ' . By the Whetstone automatic system six hundred words are telegraphed a minute. A white clay from the Carolinas, worked and colored to suit, is used in printing wall paper. A method for soldering tin cans by electricity has been devised and bidj> fair to be generally used. In Scotland many small vessels are now propelled by water jets, and some of the Clyde steam ferry boats are thus driveh.

A belt for a Louisiana electriclight plant takes the skins of 435 an- • imals and will cost SIO,OOO. It will be six feet wide and 117 feet long. Seaweed is now made into a tough ( paper, which takes the place of window glass. When colored the effect s similar to stained or painted'glass. • The life of a locomotive crank pin. which is almost the first thing about an engine to wear out, is 60,000 miles and the life of a 33-inch wheel is 66,733 miles. An electrician who has made a specialty of spectacular electricity says the day is not far off when electrical fireworks will supersede those now used. The newest boiler represents a large heating surface and takes up little room. It is made of tubes. Things seem to run to tubes and tubercles these times. Chicago has undergrourd and successfully working 404 miles of electric light cables, 650 miles of’ telegraph wires and 6,080 miles of telephone wires and cables. One of the latest proposed applications of electricity is a policeman’s club that contains a galvanic bat- 1 tery. When the rowdy seizes the club, thinking to wrest it from the policeman, the rowdy receives an electric shock which astonishes and, paralyzes him, rendering his capture easy.