Scientific and Useful.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1587, 29 April 1887, Page 4

Scientific and Useful.

All liquids have to pau through the itomach before reaching the liver. Drunkards suffer muck from stomach as well as liver complaints. Sjiiits of turpentine will remove unpleasant odours from the |hands when all other deodoiaDts fail. THE LIFEBOAT. The entire lower part of an unsinkable liteboat recently patented is filled with slabs of cork. Above this is a filling of rushes set up vertically, and having their end rendered waterproof. Above the cork and rushes is a watertight deck, which separates the lower half of the boat from the upptr half, where seats are provided for crew and passengers. THB COLOUR OF BRICKS. It may not be known to some what causes the different colours in bricks. The red colour of bricks is due to the iron contained in the clay. In the process of burning, the iron compounds are changed from the ferrous to the ferric condition and rendered anhydroHS, thus developing the colour. Certain clays—like those in the vicinity of Milwaukee, for instance contain little or no iron, and the bricks made from them are light or cream coloured. ANTiHTIC EXPLORATION. At the recent meeting of German natum. lists and physicians, in Berlin, Professor Neumaver, of Hamburg, urged the necessity of Antarctic exploration ; but he considered the question from quite a novel point of view —that of the important influence such an exploration would have on geology and palaeontology. He is of opinion that the south polar regions have a centre of dispersion for living organisms throughout the southern, just as the Nort Pole is believed to have been for the northern hemisphere. ELECLBICITV DANGKKOfS. The Electrician says that a common result of the frequent applications of electricity is the paralysis of the affected parts. A quack in Portland, Oregon has been professing to he a magnetic healer, and, standing on plates connected with a concea'ed bittery, he has been shooting the healing current through bis patients by the laying on of hands. This wonderful healer has come to grief, not through the action of the Portland police, but through Nature's own action, for he has been paralysed by the continuous electrical action, and is now payiDg the penalty of his trickery. A WORD tOR TUK SPARROWS. Dr C. Keller, of Zurich, claims that sparrows perform an important part in the preservation of forests by protecting the trees against the depredation of spiders and insect*. He has examined a great many sparrows both in their viscera ana by feeding them in captivity, and has found them to be voracious destroyers of these pes's; and he believes that the sparrows in a particular forest do more effective work in this kind than all the insect-eating birds that inhabit it. he has veriCed his views by observations on coniferous trees and a few broad leaved trees, and apple trees. NKW COOKING BTOVK. The Hon. Edward Atkinson, of Boston, has devised a cooking stove on the principle of accumulating the heat of a common oil Ump inside a chamber surrounded by thick walls of pine-wood, which retard radiation. Meats are cooked in this oven in their own juices. The heat is supplied to the chamber from the lamp by water circulating round it and heated by the flames of the lamp. The device is only an experimental one and Mr. Atkinson has not patented it, so that it is open to any stove-maker to try the same plan. Mr Atkinson states a cooking chamber 6x4 x 4) inches in dimensions will cook 31ib of meat in an hour with a half-inch wick lamp, the water being warmed to begin with.

TO rRE3ERVK WOOD. The improved French method of preserving wood by the application of lime is found to work well. The plan is to pile the planks in a tank and to put over all a layer of quicklime which is gradually slacked with water. Timber for mines takes a week to be thoroughly impregnat rd, and other wood more or less time accordmgtoitsthickness. The material acquires remarkable consistence and hardness, it is said, on being subjected to this Mtnplc process ; but theasfertioniß made that it will never rot. Hard wood prepared in this way for hammers, and other tools for ironwork, is found to acquire the hardness of oak, without parting with its well known elasticity or toughness, and it also lasts longer.

STKBL WIRE KITTOfO. Steel wire matting has recently come into use in the United States for railway carriage and street-car floors, as well as for door mats, and it is almost indestructible. It consists of steel wire woven in a series of spirals, strengthened by a rectangular system of steel bars and heavy steel wire, and bound at tbe edges by a half-round steel band. The matting is about '75 in. thick, and the wires at the surface are so shaped as to form a comfortable support to the feet, while they are at the same time sufficiently open to be selfcleaning, and require no shaking for that purpose.—lndustries.

NEW OBGXBVATOBT. An observatory is now being constructed on the highest peak of the Sonnblick, one of the Tyrolean Alps, at an elevation of about 10,. 000 ft. above the level of the sea. It thus f-tand* higher than the observatory of General M ". ' u-y on the Pic du Midi, those of Mount /Ktra aid of the Sentis in the Canton of AI per zell. It is compo-ed of a substantial wooden ttructure, firmly secured to the reck, end flanked by a stone tower with walls of great thickness, in which the meteorological im-t uirents are to be housed. The wooden *l ed contains two apartments, one for the \t per and the other lor any yifitor who may wish to make experiments. The whole is profreied by three lightning conductors against the terrific storms which prevail in that lofty regi n, and it is connected with tbe rest of tl «• world by means of a telephone wire, 600 nutrrs long, which extends to a neighbouring mine, and thence to the Tillage of Kaurie by means of a line of telegraph 24 kilometres in length.

ELECTBIC JLiCHIMSS. The Standard Electric Time Company, of New York, has been engaged for some time past in preparing the mechanism, etc., for the largest clock in the world, ore baring a face of 25ft. in diameter. This clock is to be put upagairst the corner of Tweity-tbird-street and Fifth Avenue, retting on a lower building at the junction of the thoroughfares. The worla are composed of 16 pairs of electromagnets placed around a Gin. gear wheel. At the face of each pair of magnets is placed an armature extending to the gear wheel. Every second the current from the main line to 252 Broadway, brings into circuit 64 cells of local battery, energising one pair of magnets and st.rt ii g the wheel, the impulse then affecting each pair in rotation, and distributing the pull or load very evenly. The dial is painted on the wall of the building, and the hands trivel round in front of it like the ordinary clock' Thia gigantic clock is intended to •erve u an advertisement,