Scientific and Useful.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1583, 1 April 1887, Page 4

Scientific and Useful.

The deposit of rock-salt is found to be enormous in Nevada. In recently opened quarries it is sawed out like marble, is almost pure, and is just the kind that cattle like. PRK9H WATFB BPBIKGS AT BBA. It is well known that in many places springs of fresh water arise from the bottom of the sea. Mr Toselli proposes to make use of them. Their water, brought through flexible tubes, held at the surface by suitable buoys, would furnish ships with supplies of water they are often in need of. Mr Tosselli appears to have studied the question carefully and provided for the preservation of his apparatus in the face of storms. FOB A BPBAIN. Hot water is the best thing that can be used to heal a sprain or bruise. The wounded part should be placed in water as hot as can be borne for fifteen or twenty minutes, and in all ordinary cases the pain will gradually cease. Hot water applied by menus of cloths is a sovereign remedy for neuralgia and pleurisy pains. For burns or scalds apply cloths well saturated with cool alum-water, keeping the injured parts covered from the air.

TO MAKE TBANBFER PAPER. To make transfer paper, mix lamp black with cold lard to the consistency of thick paste ; apply to common printing paper (not sized or letter paper) with a rag, and with a piece of flannel rub off all that will come off. For red, use powdered Venetian red ; for green, chrome green ; for blue, Prussian blue. To use transfer paper, place the sheet between the sketch to be copied and tho paper on which it is to be copied, with the coloured side next to the clean paper. Trace tho lines on the copy with a dull-pointed instrument, and the design will be accurately transferred on the lower sheet. BTEEI. MANUFACTURE. It would almost appear that the making of steel in small quantities is a step in the wrorg direction, experience hating led to an increase in the capacity of the converters, to reduce the cost of production as much as possible ; but the desire felt by the owners of smallbla*t furnace plants to possess the means of converting their product into steel, and by the owners of ironworks who are no longer able to find work for their puddling furnace* to make sufficient steel to keep their machinery at work, rather than to be dependent on larger firms for a snpply of ingots, has beon sufficient to stimulate the largo amount of attention which has of lato been paid to the economical production of steel in small qnantitles Smell converters are especially suit able for works which do not pos«e?s the means of dealing with the whole output of larger vessels.—lndustries.

ANCIENT BriLDINGS. In New Mexico, in tho United States' there were discovered not long ago what was supposed to be the oldest human dwellings in America. The mountains in that district are covered with large beds of lnva, which wns poured out of volcanoes long since extinct In this lava the men of prehistoric times' dug out square rooms and lined them with a kind of plaster made from the lava. Cloth formed on woven hair and various sorts of pottery were found, while shelves and cupboards were buiit in the walls of the rooms. A little mummy-like figure of a man was discovered hidden in a small hollow. There are some 66 groups of these lava villages, a group consisting of 20 bouses. . ~. A TAME WASf. Sir John Lubbock has experimented on pretty much all of the animal kingdom, hut his latest insect pupil is a wasp which he his earefully brought up on the bottle. The creature" is now as tame as a house c»t, and, though it doesn't purr like that maligned beast, it likes to be stroked and petted by its adopted patron. It wouldn't be a bad idea to try the sime method of education on a fly, and see if he too, could be made amenable to law and order. The great naturalist has never attempted taming flies, we believe ; but if he would devote himself to teaching one unmanageable fly the art cf self-control, not to say the golden rule, the wot Id would say his time was not spent in vain. If a wa«p is capable of mental development, how much mere successful would he be with intelligent and persistent flies. THK BAI.T MOUNTAIN OK PALESTINE. Palestine possesses a remarkable salt mountain situated at the south end of the Desd Sea. The length of this ridge is six miles, with an average width of three-quarters of a mile, and the height is not far from 0000 ft. There are places where the overlying earthy deposi's are many feet in thickness, but the mass of the mountain is cemposed of solid rock salt, some of which is as clear as crystal. How far this deposit of salt extends below the surface ef the ground no one at present knows. At seme points this ridge, which is on the shore of the Dead Sea, approaches very close to the water, ard at others it recedes until it is 30 or more yards from it. Just here the water of the Dead Sea is much more salt than at the rorth end, where the Jordan enters the lake. This salt is a Government monopoly. The same is true of the -alt that is contained in solution in the Dead Sea itself. If Arabs rrthe natives of the ciuntry were found getting salt from the shores of the Dead Sea or from this salt mountain, they would be arrested at once. 1 Most of the salt used in Hebron, Jerusalem, and elsewhere in this partcf Palestine, comes from these sources, but it is gathered under the direction of Qcvernment officers, and tho revenue is supposed to go to the Governmeut. THK WELSUACn STSTBM OP OAH UOHTINa BY INCANDESCENCE. This system which is tho invention of Dr Carl Auer ven We sbich, of Vienna, consists in impregnating" fabrics of cotton or other substances, mide into the form of a cylindrical hood or mantle, with a compound liquid composed of solutions of zirconia and oxides 'of lsntbenum (or with solutions of zirconia with oxides of lanthmum and yttrium,) which mantle under the influence of a gas flame, is converted into a highly refra tory material cspable of withstanding for long periods without change thejhighost temperatures which can be obtained from the most e(Client f<rm of atmorpherio burners, and which, under the influence of such temperatures, glows with a brilliant incandescence, very white and perfectly steady, and which, moreover, retains its woven or reticulated character; the organic volatile and aceous matters being ettirely burnt out, i.n 1 replaced by an incombustible and highly refractory residual skeleton, which becomes by i's bril'iant incandescence the source of light in the burner. The light emitted is at a distance, hardly distinguishable from a twenty cardie incandescent electric lamp, and by a modification of the composition of tho impregnating liquid, a yellower light is obtained, resembling that of the best gas lights, but much more brillwnt, and with a saving of gas of from 50 to 75 per cent., and, being perfectly smokeless, it is incopable of blackening ceilings and internal decorations. The illuminating power of the lights is about ten candles per cubic foot of gas consumed, I and the mantles last from 800 to 1500 hours.