Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1896 — SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. [ARTICLE]

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

—The largest individual employer is the Krupp company, employed in tin inanufacture of artillery and iron mahas on its payroll about 19,000 laborer*. —One of the most remarkable inks I'now to the chemist is made of a preparation of prussian blue in combination with nitric and hydrochloric acid. The writing done with this ink has the singular property of fading when exposed to the light and recovering it* color when taken into the shade or placed m perfect darkness. —Salmon packers on the I’ncifio i»aigtnre4'Tinrfffe”dlitt!Erbed itver news brought there last week from Petropaulovski that the Russians are arrangIng for the establishment of several large salmon and herring canneries along the Siberian coast. When the trans-Siberian railway is completed the product of these canneries is likely to be a considerable factor in European markets. \ —Large tracts of sand wastes are now being reclaimed along the Welsh' coast. Series of parallel fences are put up seaward, closely interwoven with wires and furze, and spaces between these are filled with earth and roadscrapings. In these various trees, such as sycamore, willow, pine and alder, are planted, while the ridges are sown with gorse and broom seed and planted with brier. —Mr. Wilckens, of Vienna, has found that two pure-blooded English horses transmitted the color of their coat to their progeniture in 586 cases out of 1,000. When the parents are of different colors, the offspring are almost always of the color of the mother. With Arabian horses the facts are more striking still. The white color of the coat of the mare was found to be clearly transmitted in 729 cases out of 1,000. In other cases there was a more or less marked mixture. —The soldiers and workers of the white ants (Termes), are, as a rule blind, with no traces of eyes; but a species has been found in South Africa, the workers and soldiers of which have eyes and work in daylight, like ordinary ante- In their habits they resemble harvesting anta, in cutting grass and carrying it into holes in the ground. Dr. Sharp thinks this species may be allied to the Termes viarum of Smeathman, whose soldiers and workers possess eyes. —Experiments have shown thatbifds avoid the bright-colored Caterpillars a* a rule. And this seems almost to have become a second nature, for a jackdajr, which had been raised in captivity and had had no experience in judging th® edible qualities of caterpillars, was qb»served to regard the brilliant cater* pillar of the figure-of-eight moth with suspicion and aversion, although it eagerly devoured dull, plain caterpillars placed within ita reach. When it was driven by hunger to attack other it finally refused to eat it, giving plain evidence that there was sonfethlng distasteful about the prey.