ARTS AND SCIENCES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 101, 30 April 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

ARTS AND SCIENCES.

The lighting of the city of Buffalo by electricity from the Niagara Falls plant will be accomplished in about six months if the present plans can be carried out. It is intended to run extra cables on the pole line already up; the distance is twenty-sfx miles.

The Russian Government announces that the Trans-Siberian railway, will be opened for traffic by the summer of 181)9. When that is accomplished it will be possible to make the circuit of the globe in about thirty-three days, discounting Jules Verne by fortyseven days!

Electricity on the Mexican street railways is proposed by the syndicate operating the 140 miles of road. Electric motors are spoken of, and the estimated cost of the new service is about £-1,000,000. When plans are fully prepared public announcement will be made to all electrical manufacturers, says the Bulletin of the Bureau of American Republics for February.

Tests of the Holland submarine torpeclc boat, lately completed at Elizabeth, N.J., show an ability to dive and to navigate at a depth of twenty feet below the surface of the water, at which depth the boat can attain a considerable speed. , ;

The German Surgical Society, gives \ the following- statistics for the past five years in regard to mortality" from anesthesia: Chloroform • was adminis"teiiicl 201,284 times, with 88 deaths, or in the ratio of 1 in 2,286; ether, 42,141 times with seven deaths, or.with the , ratio oi! 1 in 6,080; chloroform and ; ether 10,162 times with one death, chloroform, alchohol and ether, 5,744 times with one death; ethyl bromide, 8,967 times with two deaths. v

Some of the medical .journals of Paris are just now recommending formaldehyde in the treatment of burns, compresses soaked in a 10 per .cent, solution being applied to the affected paris. It is said that in twenty minuteß ali the pain ceases and that the coiihnued renewal of' the application causes, all traces of the burn to1 disappear, so that not the slightest redness of the skin is left.

Acetylene gas is being introduced into the railway service for car lighting; it has been used for some thne by the Pontiac and Pacific Junction 'Railway, operating- from Ottawa to Walthara., Ont. A'; mixture of oil and acetylene has also iaeentried with very excellent results by the State railways of I-russia. The mixture used is one part- acetylene to three parts oilrgas, the ~ illuminating power of the latter being thus' increased 300 per ■■■cent; NO change, in the generating apparatus is required,—Engineering News. Kcpard and Schlosing? have shown (.hat argon is present in the blood in the proportion of two arid one*-tenth par is ao every »part of nitrOgen gas. Bbfch .nitrogen arid: argon are equally soluble "in water and in the blood. -