OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 916, 20 September 1889, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

THE BIGEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD. The Engineer Sfeoffel of Paris proposss to build a bridge for the mouth of the TagU3, at Lisbon, Portugal, which will eclipse the Brooklyn bridge as an engineering feat. It would be nearly twice the length of the Brooklyn bridge, while its spans would be to those across East river as nine to five, or almost twice as great. There would be four spans altogether, resting on iron piers, with masonry foundations. The greatest difficulty to be encountered is the building of the piers, the waters of the Tagus being deep. A JAPANESE CEMENT. There is a probability', says the Japan Gazette, that the day of foreign cemeDt in Japan is past. A Yokohama cement manufacturer and dealer has discovered a stone oalled mekura in Noto distiict, which possesses remarkable qualities as a cement material. It is said that the cement will bear a weight of 400ibs to 5001bs per square sun (about inch). Foreign cement is sold at about 19s per barrel, while the estimated sale price of the cement under notice is about 10s. PHTHISIS AND THE DAIRY COWDr G. F. Brush, a New York physician, has recently formulated a theory that connects tuberculous disease in man with that among cattle. It has long been known that the bovine race is pre-eminently tuberculous, but the general impression has been that owing to the great difference in normal temperature, the disease was not transmitted to the human race. Dr Brush, however, has collected a large number of statistics that seem to prove that wherever cattle are common, and dairy produce forms a regular part of the food of the people, phthisis is common, while the absence of the dairy cow is coincidept with the absence of phthisis. Dr Brush’s statistics are interesting, though it cannot be regarded as certain that he is right in his theory of the causation of phthsis.—-Hospital. WHERE BISMARCK WORKS. It is safe to say that no other Ministry of Foreign Affan-s is so devoid of all magnificence and architectural beauty as this, the centre of European diplomacy. Over the small door which might be the entrance to a house of a second-class stand two lamps, which in the night still burn oil. Electric light is too modern. On the faoade there is not the least ornament, and the interior is unpleasant, cold, and cheerless. But here Count Herbert lives and works, here Prince Bismarck himself resided as Minister-Presi-dent of Prussia, and here the Diplomatic Corps daily congregate. In the waitingroom is an old sofa, worn and dilapidated in appearance, and it, with the bare floor and cane-bottom chairs, has often aroused the astonishment of ambassadors who had expected velvet divans and costly tapestries. But these are not considered necessary for affairs of state, and they have little time for suoh details in that busy office.—From a Berlin letter. SUBSTANCES LIABLE XQ SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. Cotton-seed oil will take fire even when mixed with 25 per cent of petroleum oil, but 10 per cent of animal or vegetable oil will go far to prevent combustion. Olive oil Is combustible ; and mixed with rags, hay, or sawdust, will produce spontaneous combustion. Coal dust, flour dust, starch, flour (especially rye flour) are all explosive when mixed with certain proportions of air. New starch is highly explosive in its comminuted state,

also sawdust in a very fine state, when confined in a close chute and water directed on it. Sawdust Bhould never be used in oil shops or warehouses to collect drippings or leakages from casks. Dry vegetable or animal oil inevitably takes fire when saturating cotton waste to 80 deg. F. Spontaneous combustion occurs most quickly when the cotton is soaked with its own weight of oil. The addition of 40 per cent of mineral oil (density 0'890) of great viscosity, and emitting no inflammable vapours, even in contact with an ignited bocy, at any point below 338 deg. F., is sufficient to prevent spontaneous combustion, and the addition of 20 per cent of the same mineral oil doubles time necessary to produce spontaneous combustion. NEW SILKWORMS. In Germany, for some years past, efforts have been made, and with considerable success., to acohmatise the oak silkworms of China and Japan Attacus Pernyi and Attaous Yama-mai. They have been raised in the open air, proiected from, the attacks of birds by nets of gauze or wire, changed from place to place as the oak leaves are consumed. Late frosts and excessively dry weather have been injurious in depriving the worms of food. In California a new wild silk moth, before unknown, has been found i.hiiving on tbe poisonous species of Rhamnus Oalifornicus or R. Purshianus. It produces a silk as good as that of the domesticated Bombyx. Owing to the favourable nature < f the climate, without the frosts or rains of China or Japan, great hopes are obtained of propagating this species. In Yucatan a wild moth lias also been met with, somewhat allied to the mulberry worm, whioh produces silk of a bluish tint, but the gum which envelops it is difficult to remove. Mr John Maclntyre, a recent traveller in Manchuria, records having met with several new species of silkworm, which he describes in the Chinese Titnos. THE OLD AND THE NEWOne need not be very old to have a distinct recollection of his daily life, its conditions and oavironmentß, fifty years ago, when the patent system of the United States was in its early infancy. Then the country was almost entirely agricultural, for our grand career in manufactures and the industrial arts was just beginning. It virtually began with the patent system—the creation of the Patent Office—and it has actually kept pace with the development of that system, so that this magnificent progress stands as the indisputable result of the system. In other words, we owe our splendid achievements in manufactures aud the arts to the stimulus that the patent laws have given to invention. Fifty years ago most of the people of the United States were clothed from the products of the domestic spinning-wheel and bandloom. The itinerant shoemaker went from house to house, setting up his bench and plying his vocation in the farmers’ kitchens. There were no planting-mills; no shops for the manufacture of doors, sash'and blinds. All the work of the huilder, including oarpenters’ and joiners’ work, was done by hand. The carpenter, if a good one, got a dollar a day. Coal was consumed but by few families even in the large cities, and by nobody in the smaller towns. The tailors, like the shoemakers, came to the house and made into clothing the cloth made by the mother and daughters, with a little help from the fulling-mill that was generally near the grist-mill of the neighbourhood. The railroad and the telegraph had nob yet added their powers to the forces of civilisation. This year, 1889, is no more like 1839 than the hand-loom is like a cotton, factory. ‘ Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.’ Better one year.of the life that is lived under the new conditions than any number of years of the hard existence that was drudged out under the old conditions. It is only the hopelessly pessimistic soul, the constitutional and incurable grumbler, that does not recognise the blessings that have come with the march of invention. For all these, let it be borne in mind, we are indebted to the system that has fostered invention, aDd secured to inventors the right to enjoy the products of their own brains and hands.—lnventive Age (U.S.).

THE MILITARY VIEW OP POLITICS. An outcry has been lately raised by a certain class of politicians at the plain speaking of Lord Wolseley and other eminent military men, and they seem to be impressed with the idea that politicians are the only persons in the country who are permitted to state facts in plais terms and call things by their proper names. Whether the Adjutant. General is always sufficiently correct nr discreet in his statements is a matter of opinion about which many people will agree to differ, but there is no doubt that his piain speaking has on many occasions produced an excellent effect. Lord Wolseley, however, when he spoke of political life, expressed the opinion which exists in the minds of most military men, and which we think receives daily confirmation from the conduct of party politics, that political life is scarcely an honeßt one, and must have a detrimenta effect on those who live it. Military men see very little distinction between one party and another—indeed, there iB very little difference, generally speaking, in their principles—and do not look upon- them as Conservatives and Libeials, but as ‘ ins ' and ‘outs,’ the main difference being that the ‘ins’ desire to keep in an.d the ‘outs’ desire to get in, either side being ready to attain their object by the sacrifice, as Artemu3 Ward said, not of themselves but of their dearest friends and relations. What other opinion than a poor one can military men form of political life, when they see that whatever may be tho worth of a particular measure it is opposed by the other side, and that when by a turn of the wheel the ‘outs’ have become ‘lns,’ they propose and advocate strongly the same measures which formerly they just as strenuously opposed. The subterfuges, the evasions, the distortions of facts, tho imputations of motives, the suppressio veri and suggestio false are opposed to all that the military mind is taught to revere. When peace reigns, and the services of our soldiers and sailors are not particularly required,

they are told that they are ignorant pleasureseekers, prejudiced, and no better than drones, consuming the substance of the hard-working bees of the country ; but when difficulties occur and war threatens they are the finest fellows in the world, and our civilian trends are full of liberal sentiments towards them. —ISroad Arrow. ELECTRICAL PRODUCTION OP BLEACHING POWDER. The Gas World says that Mr Charles Lever, of Altrincham, has succeeded in producing, direct from natural brine, by means of electricity, bleaching powder, caustic soda, and a solution to be used in bleaching the finest and moat delicate fabrics. This discovery is likely to have the effect of revolutionising the manufacture of bleaching powder and the bleaching industry generally. NEW UNDERGROUND CONDUCTORS. It ig said that some conductors are now being laid underground insulated in the following manner :—The bare wires are placed in glass lubes, which are protected by a layer of cement, outride which again is an iron pipe. The method is Baid to be very cheap, to give a high degree of insulation, and to ba impervious to water. —Electrical Review. THE RUSSIAN CAVALRY. The material of the Russian cavalry relatively to that of the German army still leaves much tobedesired. Though, according to census returns, the number of horses actually existing in the country reaches the imposing total of 20,000,000, yet 86 percent of these are undersized village ponies unsuited for military purposes ; and of the remaining 4,000,000, which are for themoßt. part reared in breeding establishments, 3,964 of which exist scattered throughout the Empire, many in the steppe, only 18 per cent breed riding horses, the remainder only drought animals. These stud-breeds hardly suffice to mfeet the requirements of the officers and of the Guard regiments, and the latter are being compelled more and more to have recourse to the horses coming from the south, to so-called ‘improved’ country, breeds, which also supply the needs of the Line oavalry almost entirely. These animals possess considerable endurance, but are not well shaped for cavalry purposes, and owing to their badly set-on heads and necks, the narrowness between the cheek-bones, and their deficient quarters, it is difficult to teach them a proper gallop ; and these defects are even more conspicuous in the Cossack horse, which is yearly deteriorating. Nevertheless, and in spite of the uncompromising nature of the material, the attempt is made to attain the same proficiency in the old fashioned manage traditions as was formerly achieved with better stock and longer service. Militar Wochenblatb.

COMPARATIVE EXPENDITURE IN THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH NAVIESThe following is translated from ‘ Les Abus dans la Marine : Lettres adressdes au Temps,’ by Paul Bourde :— ‘ Whilst in England 1.256 clerks were sufficient for the administration, the accounts, and the control, including the Admiralty itself, in France, without counting the central admininistration , there were no fewer than 2,406. In England the dockyards were safely guarded by 309 police, who were also firemen ; in France 1,950, or six times the number were employed. In the English dockyards 16,000 workmen were found to be be sufficient; in France, with a fleet less by two-fifths than the English, the complaints were incessant that 21,000 could not do the work. The number of combatants were overshadowed by the number of accessories : There were 38,000 men on shore for 39.000 on board ship, and 3,000 officials as against 1,800 offioers.. It follows, of course, that the money devoured by this parasitical growth is. not available for construction. Aud not only that : in England the policy has been to diminish the number of establishments ; in France the number has been kept up as it waslin the old days of sailing, increased by the engine factories ; and the expense of five dockyards—viz., Toulon, Rochefort, Lorient, Brest, and Cherbourg, and two factories, Tndret and Gne'rigny, is enormous. In England the value of the machinery, stores, and buildings—of the dockyard plant was estimated at 400,000,000 francs, and the fleet at 800,000,000 francs. In France this was reversed; the plant was valued at 800,000,000 francs, and the fleet at 400,000,000 francs.’

AMERICAN AND ITALIAN SHIPSNo person in the United States having been found with ability sufficient to design and draw plans for fast and powerful warships, the late Secretary of the Navy, Mr Whitney, bought some plans of an Englishman, and tor them paid a large sum. These were substantial duplicates of the plana of a Bhip previously built in England, and on these lines so obtained the American cruiser Charleston has been built. In the meantime, aud in fact in less time than it took our authorities to dicker for old drawings and copy a built ship, the Italian Government ordered and has completed the construction of a new cruiser on new plaus, and the new vessel, although smaller than the Charleston, is superior in speed and power of armament. In fact, the velocity of the Piemonte surpasses our much-bragged-of torpedo-boat Vesuvius. The latter made 211 j knots per hour ; the Piemonte 22’03 knots. The Charleston, 3,700 tons, it is hoped, may reach 19 knots, but probably will not. The muoh-vaunted prowess of our Vesuvius in being able, by her superior speed, to choose her position and destroy the strongest enemy at her leisure, is knocked on the head. The new Italian ship can do this little job, not tho American. Ev--> y cv.e of the new ships built and those beii g Unlo by our Government can he outsaiio.l and probably overcome if attacked singly or in pairs by the Piemonte. It is humiliating to

confers, but it must be admitted, the United States Government is at the present time so utterly lacking in naval enterprise and knowledge that it cannot build, and cannot even order plans from abroad on which to build new ships of the latest and most effective type. Scientific American.

The huge cantilever bridge over the Frith of Forth has been completed all but tho bridging of the 359.f00t gap between the sections. The connecting girder will be fifty feet in depth and will weigh 800 tons. Since the phylloxera has so ravaged France, Turkey is looming up as a wine-producing country. Some of the southern provinoes are said to be excellent as wine-growing districts both for climate and soil. Onion juice is useful for gumming paper to metal. The cheaper kind of clock dials used to be printed on paper and then glued to a zinc foundation ; but after a short time paper and metal were apt to part company. Now the zinc is dipped into a strong solution of washing soda, and afterwards washed over with oulon juice. If the paper is then pasted on to this it is almost impossible to separate it from the plate. At the annual meeting of the Epidemiological Society the subject of leprosy was considered, with a tendency to the conclusion that it is increasing. Major Pringle, who read a paper on the increase ef leprosy in India, was of the opinion that unless some stringent means were taken it would spread to Great Britain and all countries who deal with India. The increase in that country was set at from 7,000 to 9,000 lepers every year ; and it is said that there are not less than twenty cases in England at the present time.