SCIENTIFIC AND MECHANICAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5944, 4 December 1880, Page 3

SCIENTIFIC AND MECHANICAL NEWS.

Fuoii analysis made of various American and Australian tinned meats and vegetables. Winner concludes that these articles of diet are slightly if at all inferior to raw meat and fresh vegetables. The suggestion that steam boilers are con-oiled by the action of ozone is made by Mons. E. Weiss, a French chemist, of Millhouse, who thinks the ozone is formed in boilers by the violent upward movement of the steam.

The Journal of Science says that as the use of palls and mourners' cloaks at funerals furnishes a very efficient medium for the spread of infectious diseases, their use has been formally abolished among the Jewish community.

The results of the ollicial inquiry into the causes of the Tay Bridge disaster have stimulated railway authorities in Grea Britain to strengthen the bridges on the lines under their charge, and subject them to more rigid inspection from time to time. The average life of a Sheflield forkgrimkr is only i!) years, but that of the dry-grinder of sickles is .'iS years. For every 70,1.">1 tuns of coal dug up in Prussia the life of a miner is sacrificed ; and in England there is one life lost for every 50,410 tons raised, to the surface.

The remarkable red spot on the planet Jupiter which was first noticed last year has recently been closely examined from the Potsdam observatory in Germany, and is unchanged in appearance, being distinctly redder than the equatorial zone of the planet. The antiquarian world will learn with regret that the Arclueological Society of Koine, which has done so much good service in the exploration of the ancient walls and fortifications of the city, and of its ancient churches, is practically, if not formally, extinct.

Herr Bissinger, of Carlsruhe, Germany, finds that although Lehrmann's 2-horse ca-loric-engine and Otto"s 2-horse gas engine are among the most economical of the small motors, they are relatively tour times as expensive as a 100-horse power steam-engine. A peat bog has been earthed in the course of excavations made by navvies in the employment of the railway company at Rhodes Bank, Oldham. It is intercalated with deposit* of whal is known as glacial drift-that is, thick beds of clay, giavel, and sand, enclosing boulders of all sizes. It will be remembered that some time ago a fossil forest was discovered under Oldham.

A moderately thick plate of brass may be cut chemically by drawing a line or mark on its surface with' a solution of mercury in nitric acid. The acid attacks the copper and the mercury amalgamates with the zinc, but, as Iron remarks, whether this is the true explanation of what occurs or rot, the brass becomes as brittle as glass at the place when: the line was drawn and may be broken oil'.

According to the London Medical Press, those timid beings who are haunted by apprehensions of being buried alive, and wiio make testamentary provisions against such _ contingency, may now take courage, for science has supplied an infallible means of doterminiii" whether or not the vital spark has quitted the mortal frame. Electricity cables us to distinguish with absolute certainty between life and death, for two or three liours after the stoppage of the heart the whole of the muscles of the body have completely lost their electric excitability.

Louis Sucn.UTbt.Ti,', :i watchmaker, of Copenhagen, lias obviated the necessity of winding u[> the regulator from which the electric clucks (if that city take their time. liv suitable incch:iiii.sm lie cuts oil' from time to time the stream of electricity which comes from the battery, and brings an electro-mag-net to bear upon the relaxed mainspring in such a way as to renew its tension instantaneously, and this apparently '• perpetual motion" sort of action continues so long as the batteries connected with the works of the regulator are supplied with acid. At the last"meeting of the "Balloon Society ofCrcat Britain the' recent balloon voyage .nit to sea at Cherbourg was referred to. .Mr. Simmons stated that when he some years ago made a similar trip at Hull he went twenty miles out to sea and then got into an anticipated return current, which lie found a few feet above the outward current, and which landed him at tins desired spot on terra lirina. The President read a letter ironi a member of the Society who had made one of his ascents in a thunder-storm, and found the atmosphere at an altitude of about ■200 feet and for a height of 100 feet to be of a dull leaden hue. but as soon as he had risen above this stratum he found the sky i|iiite unclouded, and witnessed perfectly clearly the storm raging below in all its grandeur.