Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1875 — MECHANICAL AND SCIENTIFIC. [ARTICLE]

MECHANICAL AND SCIENTIFIC.

—The scenograph is a Belgian invention, in the shape of a small photographic camera mounted on a cane. The negative lieing prepared beforehand, it is only necessary to place a plant, aD insect, or any other object in the focus of the instrument for a minute or so to obtain a correct repkresentation. This can then be developed at leisure. • —Animal charcoal or is an excellent antidote to the poisonous effects of phosphorus. A number of experiments warrant the l>elief that it is far more efficacious titan tlie oil of turpentine, which, although valuable for the purpose, frequently produces severe headaches. The boneblack is administered in the form of pills made with gum tragacanth or other mucilaginous substance. —Scientific American. —Thin sheets of copper, secured to the inside of a locomotive boiler and forming an internal skin next the water, have been tried with success in Austria. The engine ran 14,000 miles and was then examined. Tlie copper was found to be only slighly incrusted, and the iron plates under it were perfectly bright and clean. It is estimated by the builder that the life of the boiler may, by this means, be extended to more than double its usual limit. —An Austrian chemist has succeeded in producing a paper which looks exactly like leather, and may in many instances be used as a substitute. He uses the socalled parchment paper, which, by his process, lie renders so pliable and supple and so similar to leather in color and gloss that it would even be capable of deceiving the most skillful in the trade. This leather paper may be used as a substitute in bookbinding, box, case and etui work, and can be well gilt, pressed, gummed and .rolled like natural leather. For bookbinding it is especially appropriate, as its surface withstands with great resistance the effects of wear and tear, does not get dirty, and is even impervious to wet. —At a late meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society of England Mr. Darwin communicated the results derived from certain experiments in producing hybrid plants by grafting. In the summer of 1874 Reuter, the head gardener at the Imperial Palace of Potsdam, cut out all the eyes in a long white Mexican potato. Then, cutting a wedge-shaped piece containing an eye from a dark, gray-black kidney variety, he grafted it into the eyeless Mexican potato. The tubers produced by this union combined the characters of the two original species in numberless varieties. Similar experiments were performed in 1872 by Dr. Max Hillmann with similar results; also, in-Stuttgardt, Dr. Neubert has recently met with the same experience in like attempts. ‘ —The French papers .speak at a method of rendering paper extremely hard and tenacious by subjecting tho pulp to the action of chloride of zinc. After it. has been treated with the chloride it is submitted to a strong pressure, thereafter becoming’as hard as wood and as tough as leather. The hardness varies according to the strength of the metallic solution. Tlie material thus produced can be easily colored. It may be employed in covering floors with advantage, and may be made to replace leather in the manufacture of coarse shoes, and is a good material for whip handles, the mounting of saws, for buttons, combs, and other articles of various descriptions. An excellent use of it is in large sheets for roofing. Paper already manufactured acquires the same consistency when plunged, unsized, into a solution of the chloride.