Volume 17 (1868) (428 pages)

The Mining and Scientific Press. 35 — pt POP a Circular Ships of War, at Setentific Misecllan os “al The Phenomena of Light—Interesting Drilling vs. Punching Steel Plates. We have already called attention to the great advantage of drilling over pnnching for iron hoiler plates. In tho use of highly carbonized or very hard steel, the advantage ofdrilling over punching is still more apparent. ‘The particles or crystals of very hard plato are enhical in form, and havea very firm adherence to cach other; and while they offer great resistance, they lack . In softer steel . the clastivity of sefter steel. tho crystals are somewhat elongated, overlap cach other, and haven certain amount of clasticity, combined with a capacity for still greater clongation. Hlenee, whero a punch penetrates hard steel, a series of fractures occur, which cxtond to a greater or less distanco into the mass, separating the erystals and weakening the plate much more than is dno to the dinmeter of the opening made. Tho different form of erystals in soft steel, and their moro yielding nature, admits of the passago of tho punch with less fracture. In drilling, all fracturo is avvided. From careful experiments made with dif ferent qualities of steel plates, it has heen proven that the average advantage gained by drilling over punching is fully 22.5 per eent. iu poiut of teusile strain. The gain is larger in hrittlo steel or iron thar®in the softer metal of oither kind ; and larger in stecl than in iron. In the use of stcel, annealing is found to he of very great advantage. It has heen shown hy actnal experiment that hard steel which has heeu anuealed after puuching has sixty-four per cent. greatcr tensile strength than the same stecl suhmitted to test heforeannealing. Annealing reducesthe amount of carhon in the steel, and as a consequenco ehauges the crystallization from euhieal to that of an clongated form —approaching to filrons. Crueible-mado steel verges much uearer to the fibrous character of fine iron than steel prepared in auy other manuer. ‘The superiority of Crupp’s steel is mainly dne to its mode of crucihle conversion. Even crucible steel is sixteen per cent. stronger when it is annealed after being punched, than when punched without being annealed. These facts are especially importantin all eases where steel plates are used, as for ship building, armor plating or boiler making. As muchis now being said with regard to the introduction of steel boilers, it is especially important that this class of facts should he kept iu mind with reference to that specialty. Cold hammering, either steel or iron, is very injurious; and especially so in the caso of steel, which is often rendered absolutely worthless by such nieans. Castine Merans in Puasrer or Panis Moxips.—Mr. A. C, Small, of Augusta, Ga., uses plastcr of paris molds for castings of low fusille metals. He dries the molds perfectly in the open air, and wheu about to use them, warms them just euongh to prevent their chilling the metal when poured in. After warming, he holds them over a flame that produces a large amount of smoke, nntil tho inside of the mold is completely blackened over, About 200 castings can be obtained from each mold. Larce Wine Rorz.—The largest, longest and heaviest wire rope ever made in one piece, has recently been completed at the works of John A. Roebliug, Treuton, N. J. This rope is intended for hauling trains of coal cars up au inclined plaue, at the north slope of the Wilkesbarre Mountain, Pa., and the load hauled up every trip consists of 10 cars weighing 30 tous, and ladeu with 55 tons of coal, makiug a total weight of 85 tons. The length of the rope is 3,700 fect ; its diameter a little over 234 inches ; weight 20 tons. A novel vessel of war has recently heen proposed hy Mr. John Elder, of the well. known firm of Randolph and Elder, of Glasgow, Scetland. Mr. Elder recently read a paper, deserihing his plans, hefore the Noyal United Serviee Institution. It appears from the deseriptien whicli he gives that ho proposes to make his armor-clad cirenlar in plan, the pertion helew the water-line, and fora short distance above it being a segment of an enormous sphere. The upper portion of tho vessel is also formed, in part, of the segment of a sphere, the two segmeuts uniting in a sharp cirenlar edge, which Mr. Elder proposes to use for cutting pnrpeses, as we shall explain presently. In tho center of tho vessclgs a circular armor-plated battery or fort constructed to monut ten guns. Of course, being cireular, tho vessel has no head or stern, and it is to he titted with machinery for propelling it indifferently in any direction. Tho propelling powcr is to he ohtained hy the projeetion of jets of water throngh convenient openings, the jets being supplied hy some of the arrangeinents lately hronght out hy Mr. Charles Randolph. These jets will not only propel the vesscl in any direction, hut, hy means of deflecting plates fitted to the nozzles, they will cnable a rotary motion to be imparted toit. Myr. Elder oxpects to be thus able to rotate tho vessel at a speed of alout 10 revolutions per minute, and, as it is possihle to load and firo a heavy guu in one minute, each of tho ten guns eould be thus fired at any object as it camo to bear upon it, and eould ho reloaded during the time tho remainder of tho revolution was heing performed. Mr. Elder also proposes to use the sharp edge of the revolving vessel as a kind of immense circular saw, and hy its use to cut down anenemy’s ship. As regards the resistance to propulsion of these civeular vessels, Mr. Elder has carried out some experiments on models which seem to show that with a given displacement the resistance is but about 10 per cent. greater with the circular form than with a vessel of the Black Prinee model. shapo undoubtedly gives for a certain displacement a less area of wetted surface than any other form, and the skiu resistance would he therefore proportiouately dim.nished. The circular form also possesses advautages in the way of giving steadiness, large spaco for stowage, etc., and altogether Mr. Elder’s scheme, says the Engineering, from which we condense the ahove, although rather startling at first sight, possesses many merits which render it entitled to careful consideration. SreeL Rarts.—The impression is hecoming more and more provalent that steel rails must take the place of iron upon the railroad traek. The constantly increasing weight which is heing put into locomotives is doing much to hring about this necessity. Itis found necessary at the present time, to have a much stronger rail than formerly for this reason ; andit is proposed to attain both strength and durability, and at the same time decrease the weight of metal employed, by sulstituting steel for iron in the rail. The New Haveu Railroad is now laying dowu about thirty miles of steel rails, and will substitute steel for iron as fast as the present iron rails wear out on other parts of tho road. Steel rails cost only about twice as much as iron, and aro said to wear ten times aslong. The additional safety attained by their useis a most importaut consideration with the traveling puhlie. Coupressrep Woop.—Mr. Ind. Spaulding, of Brooklyn, New York, reeeutly exhihited to the Americau Institute, two blocks of oak, one of which had been foreed through an iron dic, by an hydraulic press, at a pressure of about sixty tons to the square inch. The wood was compressed as solid as mahogauy, whilea similar’ piece fyom the same stick, but not so treated, wss badly checked. Tho sccond picco was subsequently subjected to hydraulic pressure, . and afterwards subnitted to a high temperature for two weeks. Mr. Spaulding, who has receutly devised this process, claims that the most inferior woods may, when tuus treated, he employed for a great number of mechanical purposes, for which iu their natural condition they are totally inapplicable. ‘Lhe invention, beiug an entirely new one, was regarded by the Iustitute as one of mueh importauec. The spherical’ Sctirntnic Actp anp Pustincu.—It has generally heen conceded, and is taught in all text books, that platinum is nct,acted upon hy acids; hut Mr. Scheurer, of Thaun, has recently shown thet this metal is not only materially acted upen hy sulphuric acid; hut has actually measnred the waste. He has shown that in an alemhie employed in the mauufacture of sulphuric acid, of suflicient capacity to yield 8,000 pounds of concentrated acid daily, tho waste of metal is one-quarter of an ounce per day ; and that, too, wheu the acid is uearly free fron. nitrons vapors. Two or three times as much is lost whon the acid is no freer from these yapors than it ordinarily is. New vessels suffer less than those that havo becu along timo in use. Tho addition of sulphato of ammouia to tho acid, in suflicient quantity to render tho nitrous vapors inert, is a partial rewedy. Platinum, however, which contaius iudium, is mueh moro durable than tho puro metal. Sineo tho discovery of M. Scheurer, platinum, inteuded for tho manufacturo of vessels to ho used iu the production of sulphuric acid, is alloyed with a small quantity of indium, Comrets.—There are so few comets which revolve iu short periods around the sun, and these few are subjected to so many dan gers—existing seemingly under the eontinual risk of dissolution—that a certain interest attaches to the search for periodical comets at their suecessive approach to perihelion. Of uearly twenty comets which are recognized members of this class, only eight have heen known to return at the predicted seasons, and one of these has lately failed to appear at the appointed time, although all the leading ohservers in Europe have swept diligently with their telescopes over the region alon#which it was expectcd to travel. No one kuows what has happened to this partienlar comet. Its path had not brought it near to any of the large planets ; but a certaiu suspiciou had already fallen on its character for consistency, sinee, as at a former visit, it had separated into two distinct comets under the very telescopes of observers. Auother comet of the ssme elass was watched during two revolutions and then vanished. But astrouomers had an inkling in this ease of the cause of this catastropho, since it wasknown that Jnpiter had introduced the stranger within the solar system, and it was recognized that that giant comet-compeller was competent to dismiss the comet from the neighborhood of the sun. The majority of those comets, however, which have disappeared from our ken, have done so without any assignable cause. Jupiter appears to be the great comet disturher of our system. It is pretty generally conceded that it has beeu the ruin of several, andit is well known to have moro or less modified the motions of several others. When anything appears wrong in the course of one of these celestial wanderers, which hasa path that nearlyapproaches this giant disturber, astronomers are apt to keep a pretty goed lookout in the neighborhood of that planet. Quite 2 number of eomets havea period of from five to six years, and an orhit but barely reaching heyoud that of Jupiter. Recent GroLocicaL Cuaners.—The geolégical changes that havo ocenrred in China and Japan are almostincredible, and are decidedly more rapid than auy of which we have any record in other parts of tho world. The land is elevated and gains on the sea. Mr. Bickmore, an Americsn traveler, has made carcful ohservations from Canton up to the mouth of the Amoor river, and his general couclusion is that the facts, taken In connection with the dry beds of friths and bays along the Siberian horders of the Arctic Ocean, and the remuant of the old gulf that once washed the eastern flauk of the Ural, enable the geologist to fown an idea of tho large increase of the Asiatic couExhibition, A number of experiments, as illustrating the phenomenn of light, wore perfermed the other night in the Philadelphia Academy of Music, by Professer Henry Morton ef that city. The following, among others, were specially interesting : ‘The professor piaced himself and apparatus ou a platform secured te one of the stage traps, and was then raised to a great hight ahove the fleor, at which elevation he burned in the compound blewpipo a piece of thick steel wire rope. The fountain of seintillating sparks and drops of niclted steel—which, descending in a broad sheet some fifteen feet in width, poured upon tho stage and rolled in a torrent of fiery hail toward tho foot lights—was a sight never to he forgotten. A wheel five feet in diameter, supporting electrical tubes, was rotated, whilo flashes of clectrie fire from the largest induction coil in the world, belonging to tho University of Pennsylvania, were passed through, producing a dazzling star of constantly changing colored rays, The drop eurtain, descending for a few moments, roso again, displaying a beautiful palaco scene, illuminated by numerous lime lights, judiciously placed. There then marched in a great number of masked figures, in costumes representing the colors of the rainbow, and besring hanners with brilliant deviees. These taking positions, formed a tahleau equal in brilliuncy and heauty of general effect to anything we have ever seen upon the stage. At a signal the white light was extinguished and its place supplied by pure yellow light, equally bright, when every trace of color disappeared, and the entire phalanx hecame a ghastly company of specters hearing banners of white and hlack. The means for produeing this yellow light is a device of Professor Morton’s, entirely new and eminently efficient—in fact, tho cntire house was illumiuated with it from tho stage, so that the same wonderful change was manifest in tho faces and costumes of the audience.” New Maneanese Barrery.—aA hattery, eomposed essentially of peroxide of manganese and a siugle liquid, chloride of ammonium, has recently been constructed by M. Leblanche, and according to Les Mondes, has heen already somewhat extensively adopted, or, at least, taken on trial by several telegraph companies on the Continent. It has heen long known that peroxide of manganese possesses au electric conductivity similar to that of metals. The author only uses the natural erystalline peroxide of the purest quality. This is broken up and placed in a porous vessel, where it surrounds a carbon plate, forming the positive pole of the hattery, the negative plate outside the porous vessel is simply a thick rod of zine; the liquid which bathes both plates is a concentrated solution of sal-ammoniac. It appears to be a very constant form of hattery, and exceedingly economical. P. Penxocio descrihes a contrivance hy which the troublesome ‘‘ humping” peculiar to certain liquids when suhmitted to distillation, may be ohviated. A glass tube, as wide as is convenient, is passed through tho tuberlare into the body of tho retort, nearly to the bottom. The upper end of the tube is hent at a right angle, and drawn out to nearly capillary dimensions, thus estsblishing a communication between the interior of the retort and the onter air. With this arrangement of apparatus such liquids as methylic alcohol, sulphuric acid, ete., distill as smoothly as water. : Macnesia CyLinpens rortar DrumMmonp Lacut.—M. Caron has published a shortaccount of the wayin which ho makes his magnesian cylinders for the Drnmmoud light. He takes magnesia which has heeu purified from alkalies and the other alkaline earths, and after moistening it with a solution of boracie acid, presses it into molds. , The reasou for separating the other alkalino earths and alkalies is that their presence would affect the color of the light. The boracie acid would probably give a tinent withiu a comparativo recent period. . greeuish tinge to the fame. A Discovery 1x Macnetism.—M. Gerard is said to have discovered a very curious fact. If a metallic ring made of wire, the diametcr of which varies regularly, so that at onc side of the ring it is very thin and at the other side relatively very thick, be suspended over an electro-magnet, it will revolve. The author sees in this fact the germs of anew system of electric telegraphy, for the details of which we wait. Srrsp or THE SuNsEs.—The speod with which the sensation (of paiu for iustanee) is carried forward from the part affected to the brain is far from being, like electricity, instantaneous; it travels at arate of less than 100 feet per second—less rapid thau the flight of an eagle, which is 180 feet per second,

The Mining and Scientific Press. 35 — pt POP a Circular Ships of War, at Setentific Misecllan os “al The Phenomena of Light—Interesting Drilling vs. Punching Steel Plates. We have already called attention to the great advantage of drilling over pnnching for iron hoiler plates. In tho use of highly carbonized or very hard steel, the advantage ofdrilling over punching is still more apparent. ‘The particles or crystals of very hard plato are enhical in form, and havea very firm adherence to cach other; and while they offer great resistance, they lack . In softer steel . the clastivity of sefter steel. tho crystals are somewhat elongated, overlap cach other, and haven certain amount of clasticity, combined with a capacity for still greater clongation. Hlenee, whero a punch penetrates hard steel, a series of fractures occur, which cxtond to a greater or less distanco into the mass, separating the erystals and weakening the plate much more than is dno to the dinmeter of the opening made. Tho different form of erystals in soft steel, and their moro yielding nature, admits of the passago of tho punch with less fracture. In drilling, all fracturo is avvided. From careful experiments made with dif ferent qualities of steel plates, it has heen proven that the average advantage gained by drilling over punching is fully 22.5 per eent. iu poiut of teusile strain. The gain is larger in hrittlo steel or iron thar®in the softer metal of oither kind ; and larger in stecl than in iron. In the use of stcel, annealing is found to he of very great advantage. It has heen shown hy actnal experiment that hard steel which has heeu anuealed after puuching has sixty-four per cent. greatcr tensile strength than the same stecl suhmitted to test heforeannealing. Annealing reducesthe amount of carhon in the steel, and as a consequenco ehauges the crystallization from euhieal to that of an clongated form —approaching to filrons. Crueible-mado steel verges much uearer to the fibrous character of fine iron than steel prepared in auy other manuer. ‘The superiority of Crupp’s steel is mainly dne to its mode of crucihle conversion. Even crucible steel is sixteen per cent. stronger when it is annealed after being punched, than when punched without being annealed. These facts are especially importantin all eases where steel plates are used, as for ship building, armor plating or boiler making. As muchis now being said with regard to the introduction of steel boilers, it is especially important that this class of facts should he kept iu mind with reference to that specialty. Cold hammering, either steel or iron, is very injurious; and especially so in the caso of steel, which is often rendered absolutely worthless by such nieans. Castine Merans in Puasrer or Panis Moxips.—Mr. A. C, Small, of Augusta, Ga., uses plastcr of paris molds for castings of low fusille metals. He dries the molds perfectly in the open air, and wheu about to use them, warms them just euongh to prevent their chilling the metal when poured in. After warming, he holds them over a flame that produces a large amount of smoke, nntil tho inside of the mold is completely blackened over, About 200 castings can be obtained from each mold. Larce Wine Rorz.—The largest, longest and heaviest wire rope ever made in one piece, has recently been completed at the works of John A. Roebliug, Treuton, N. J. This rope is intended for hauling trains of coal cars up au inclined plaue, at the north slope of the Wilkesbarre Mountain, Pa., and the load hauled up every trip consists of 10 cars weighing 30 tous, and ladeu with 55 tons of coal, makiug a total weight of 85 tons. The length of the rope is 3,700 fect ; its diameter a little over 234 inches ; weight 20 tons. A novel vessel of war has recently heen proposed hy Mr. John Elder, of the well. known firm of Randolph and Elder, of Glasgow, Scetland. Mr. Elder recently read a paper, deserihing his plans, hefore the Noyal United Serviee Institution. It appears from the deseriptien whicli he gives that ho proposes to make his armor-clad cirenlar in plan, the pertion helew the water-line, and fora short distance above it being a segment of an enormous sphere. The upper portion of tho vessel is also formed, in part, of the segment of a sphere, the two segmeuts uniting in a sharp cirenlar edge, which Mr. Elder proposes to use for cutting pnrpeses, as we shall explain presently. In tho center of tho vessclgs a circular armor-plated battery or fort constructed to monut ten guns. Of course, being cireular, tho vessel has no head or stern, and it is to he titted with machinery for propelling it indifferently in any direction. Tho propelling powcr is to he ohtained hy the projeetion of jets of water throngh convenient openings, the jets being supplied hy some of the arrangeinents lately hronght out hy Mr. Charles Randolph. These jets will not only propel the vesscl in any direction, hut, hy means of deflecting plates fitted to the nozzles, they will cnable a rotary motion to be imparted toit. Myr. Elder oxpects to be thus able to rotate tho vessel at a speed of alout 10 revolutions per minute, and, as it is possihle to load and firo a heavy guu in one minute, each of tho ten guns eould be thus fired at any object as it camo to bear upon it, and eould ho reloaded during the time tho remainder of tho revolution was heing performed. Mr. Elder also proposes to use the sharp edge of the revolving vessel as a kind of immense circular saw, and hy its use to cut down anenemy’s ship. As regards the resistance to propulsion of these civeular vessels, Mr. Elder has carried out some experiments on models which seem to show that with a given displacement the resistance is but about 10 per cent. greater with the circular form than with a vessel of the Black Prinee model. shapo undoubtedly gives for a certain displacement a less area of wetted surface than any other form, and the skiu resistance would he therefore proportiouately dim.nished. The circular form also possesses advautages in the way of giving steadiness, large spaco for stowage, etc., and altogether Mr. Elder’s scheme, says the Engineering, from which we condense the ahove, although rather startling at first sight, possesses many merits which render it entitled to careful consideration. SreeL Rarts.—The impression is hecoming more and more provalent that steel rails must take the place of iron upon the railroad traek. The constantly increasing weight which is heing put into locomotives is doing much to hring about this necessity. Itis found necessary at the present time, to have a much stronger rail than formerly for this reason ; andit is proposed to attain both strength and durability, and at the same time decrease the weight of metal employed, by sulstituting steel for iron in the rail. The New Haveu Railroad is now laying dowu about thirty miles of steel rails, and will substitute steel for iron as fast as the present iron rails wear out on other parts of tho road. Steel rails cost only about twice as much as iron, and aro said to wear ten times aslong. The additional safety attained by their useis a most importaut consideration with the traveling puhlie. Coupressrep Woop.—Mr. Ind. Spaulding, of Brooklyn, New York, reeeutly exhihited to the Americau Institute, two blocks of oak, one of which had been foreed through an iron dic, by an hydraulic press, at a pressure of about sixty tons to the square inch. The wood was compressed as solid as mahogauy, whilea similar’ piece fyom the same stick, but not so treated, wss badly checked. Tho sccond picco was subsequently subjected to hydraulic pressure, . and afterwards subnitted to a high temperature for two weeks. Mr. Spaulding, who has receutly devised this process, claims that the most inferior woods may, when tuus treated, he employed for a great number of mechanical purposes, for which iu

their natural condition they are totally inapplicable. ‘Lhe invention, beiug an entirely new one, was regarded by the Iustitute as one of mueh importauec. The spherical’ Sctirntnic Actp anp Pustincu.—It has generally heen conceded, and is taught in all text books, that platinum is nct,acted upon hy acids; hut Mr. Scheurer, of Thaun, has recently shown thet this metal is not only materially acted upen hy sulphuric acid; hut has actually measnred the waste. He has shown that in an alemhie employed in the mauufacture of sulphuric acid, of suflicient capacity to yield 8,000 pounds of concentrated acid daily, tho waste of metal is one-quarter of an ounce per day ; and that, too, wheu the acid is uearly free fron. nitrons vapors. Two or three times as much is lost whon the acid is no freer from these yapors than it ordinarily is. New vessels suffer less than those that havo becu along timo in use. Tho addition of sulphato of ammouia to tho acid, in suflicient quantity to render tho nitrous vapors inert, is a partial rewedy. Platinum, however, which contaius iudium, is mueh moro durable than tho puro metal. Sineo tho discovery of M. Scheurer, platinum, inteuded for tho manufacturo of vessels to ho used iu the production of sulphuric acid, is alloyed with a small quantity of indium, Comrets.—There are so few comets which revolve iu short periods around the sun, and these few are subjected to so many dan gers—existing seemingly under the eontinual risk of dissolution—that a certain interest attaches to the search for periodical comets at their suecessive approach to perihelion. Of uearly twenty comets which are recognized members of this class, only eight have heen known to return at the predicted seasons, and one of these has lately failed to appear at the appointed time, although all the leading ohservers in Europe have swept diligently with their telescopes over the region alon#which it was expectcd to travel. No one kuows what has happened to this partienlar comet. Its path had not brought it near to any of the large planets ; but a certaiu suspiciou had already fallen on its character for consistency, sinee, as at a former visit, it had separated into two distinct comets under the very telescopes of observers. Auother comet of the ssme elass was watched during two revolutions and then vanished. But astrouomers had an inkling in this ease of the cause of this catastropho, since it wasknown that Jnpiter had introduced the stranger within the solar system, and it was recognized that that giant comet-compeller was competent to dismiss the comet from the neighborhood of the sun. The majority of those comets, however, which have disappeared from our ken, have done so without any assignable cause. Jupiter appears to be the great comet disturher of our system. It is pretty generally conceded that it has beeu the ruin of several, andit is well known to have moro or less modified the motions of several others. When anything appears wrong in the course of one of these celestial wanderers, which hasa path that nearlyapproaches this giant disturber, astronomers are apt to keep a pretty goed lookout in the neighborhood of that planet. Quite 2 number of eomets havea period of from five to six years, and an orhit but barely reaching heyoud that of Jupiter. Recent GroLocicaL Cuaners.—The geolégical changes that havo ocenrred in China and Japan are almostincredible, and are decidedly more rapid than auy of which we have any record in other parts of tho world. The land is elevated and gains on the sea. Mr. Bickmore, an Americsn traveler, has made carcful ohservations from Canton up to the mouth of the Amoor river, and his general couclusion is that the facts, taken In connection with the dry beds of friths and bays along the Siberian horders of the Arctic Ocean, and the remuant of the old gulf that once washed the eastern flauk of the Ural, enable the geologist to fown an idea of tho large increase of the Asiatic couExhibition, A number of experiments, as illustrating the phenomenn of light, wore perfermed the other night in the Philadelphia Academy of Music, by Professer Henry Morton ef that city. The following, among others, were specially interesting : ‘The professor piaced himself and apparatus ou a platform secured te one of the stage traps, and was then raised to a great hight ahove the fleor, at which elevation he burned in the compound blewpipo a piece of thick steel wire rope. The fountain of seintillating sparks and drops of niclted steel—which, descending in a broad sheet some fifteen feet in width, poured upon tho stage and rolled in a torrent of fiery hail toward tho foot lights—was a sight never to he forgotten. A wheel five feet in diameter, supporting electrical tubes, was rotated, whilo flashes of clectrie fire from the largest induction coil in the world, belonging to tho University of Pennsylvania, were passed through, producing a dazzling star of constantly changing colored rays, The drop eurtain, descending for a few moments, roso again, displaying a beautiful palaco scene, illuminated by numerous lime lights, judiciously placed. There then marched in a great number of masked figures, in costumes representing the colors of the rainbow, and besring hanners with brilliant deviees. These taking positions, formed a tahleau equal in brilliuncy and heauty of general effect to anything we have ever seen upon the stage. At a signal the white light was extinguished and its place supplied by pure yellow light, equally bright, when every trace of color disappeared, and the entire phalanx hecame a ghastly company of specters hearing banners of white and hlack. The means for produeing this yellow light is a device of Professor Morton’s, entirely new and eminently efficient—in fact, tho cntire house was illumiuated with it from tho stage, so that the same wonderful change was manifest in tho faces and costumes of the audience.” New Maneanese Barrery.—aA hattery, eomposed essentially of peroxide of manganese and a siugle liquid, chloride of ammonium, has recently been constructed by M. Leblanche, and according to Les Mondes, has heen already somewhat extensively adopted, or, at least, taken on trial by several telegraph companies on the Continent. It has heen long known that peroxide of manganese possesses au electric conductivity similar to that of metals. The author only uses the natural erystalline peroxide of the purest quality. This is broken up and placed in a porous vessel, where it surrounds a carbon plate, forming the positive pole of the hattery, the negative plate outside the porous vessel is simply a thick rod of zine; the liquid which bathes both plates is a concentrated solution of sal-ammoniac. It appears to be a very constant form of hattery, and exceedingly economical. P. Penxocio descrihes a contrivance hy which the troublesome ‘‘ humping” peculiar to certain liquids when suhmitted to distillation, may be ohviated. A glass tube, as wide as is convenient, is passed through tho tuberlare into the body of tho retort, nearly to the bottom. The upper end of the tube is hent at a right angle, and drawn out to nearly capillary dimensions, thus estsblishing a communication between the interior of the retort and the onter air. With this arrangement of apparatus such liquids as methylic alcohol, sulphuric acid, ete., distill as smoothly as water. : Macnesia CyLinpens rortar DrumMmonp Lacut.—M. Caron has published a shortaccount of the wayin which ho makes his magnesian cylinders for the Drnmmoud light. He takes magnesia which has heeu purified from alkalies and the other alkaline earths, and after moistening it with a solution of boracie acid, presses it into molds. , The reasou for separating the other alkalino earths and alkalies is that their presence would affect the color of the light. The boracie acid would probably give a tinent withiu a comparativo recent period. . greeuish tinge to the fame. A Discovery 1x Macnetism.—M. Gerard is said to have discovered a very curious fact. If a metallic ring made of wire, the diametcr of which varies regularly, so that at onc side of the ring it is very thin and at the other side relatively very thick, be suspended over an electro-magnet, it will revolve. The author sees in this fact the germs of anew system of electric telegraphy, for the details of which we wait. Srrsp or THE SuNsEs.—The speod with which the sensation (of paiu for iustanee) is carried forward from the part affected to the brain is far from being, like electricity, instantaneous; it travels at arate of less than 100 feet per second—less rapid thau the flight of an eagle, which is 180 feet per second,