Volume 35 (1877) (426 pages)

August 25, 1877.] MINING AND SCIENTIFIC PRESS 119 Mining for Gold in Black Sand. A correspondent df the Willamette Farmer, writing from Coquille City, Coos Co., gives a long secount of the Black sand mines, from which we extract the following: ‘The inining region is an old beach, two and one-half miles from the present one. Two companies are working here, about one-fourth of a mile apart. The Black sand is laid in a strata from twu to six fect thick and 50 to 100 feet bencath the surface. The “ect,” atthe mouth of tho tunnels, having been slniced ont to a ‘lepth of 50 feet, the formation is clearly shown, consisting entirely of sand; grey, white, and yellow; old sand lie covered with a few inches of soil, and a growth of giant firs and cedars, which might have served in the days of King Solumon, for beams and rafters, for the house of his favorite concubine. Large trees, lying prone, evidently drift logs, are encountered in the tunnels. At the timo of iny visit the workmen were entting throngh one of naknuwn wood, 90 fect helow the surface. Another, cut thronyh in the same tunnel, a redwood (Segnoi) over four feet iu diameter, showed nnmistakable evidence of having been subjected to pounding in the surf. These logs are 72 feet ahove the prescnt sea level, ina hilly, alniost mountainons country, made up almost entircly of pure sand carrying a heavy growth of old trees; they tell the story of the lapse of timo in this loeality, where rolled the boundless Pacific ‘‘ hearing no suuud savo its own tlashing;’ and the same formatien also shows by what imperceptable degrees the waters followed the Star of Empire, and tlie strip of two and one-half iniles of ferra desxsieata has heen added to the west shore of the American continent. And still the process is going on, aud onr Uncle Samucl is not only yaiuing grouud, but the tireless occan is expending its cnergics for the henetit of man, and continually casting up its golden sands within reach of the lucky ininer, ‘The richest sand is said te bo on the present beach, where it is covered with water at every tide, Various theories are advanced to explain this gradual receding of the ocean; but perhaps as genious and satisfactory as any is that of the sailor, who acconuts for it in this wise: That as tbe earth whirls rapidly to the east, the water being a heavy liquid and easily movahle, is unahle to keep pace with the motion, and therefore naturally slashes round to the other side. ‘‘ Qnien Sabhe.” The hlack sand is believed to have come from the coast monntaius, being brought down by the streams tothe sea, and then beat up ashore. This being true, it follows logically that black sand containing gold should he found more or less all along the coast. The sand resembles very fine-grained gunpowder, but is not entirely hlack. Tie a magnifier it shows beautiful, clear, polished black grains interspersed witb differently tiuted agates, from clcar white, and transparent, toaruby red. The gold is very fine, almost microscopic in its character, and is therefore very difficult to save by ordinary methods, Indeed it is claimed that the sand in the “tailrace” contanis twice the quantity of gold that is taken ont hy the process through which it passes. At tbe C. B.M. Co’s mine the sand is simply washed ina sluice, and passed over a copper plate covered with mercury; but parties lately from San Francisco are putting up at their mine machines known as the Frue concentrator. This machine consists of an endless rubher belt, having a flange standing up on each edge. About seveu feet of this belt lies level laterally, but is inclined lengthwise, so tbat water will run witha brisk current. The belt is given two motions, by suitable machinery; a shaking motion from side to side, and a slow traveling motiou against the current of water flowing over it. On this belt the sand is floated in water and agitated, and the gold shook down onto the belt, where it is expected to adhere; the sand passing on down witb the water into the tailrace; the gold passing with the belt over the pulley, is jarred and washed off on the under side. This machine will, it is claimed, save 80 per cent. of the gold. If so, there is a ‘‘ big honanza” here, and black sand mining will take a front seat among the industries of Oregon. Coat.—Johnny Bell, engineer on the Eureka and Palisade railroad, took on board a cargo of Palisade coal, Sunday afternoon, and tested its quality ou the trip. He reports it as an excellent article of fuel, hurning freely and making steam very fast. The mine has improved all the way from the surface to a depth of 50 feet, and great hopes are entertained of eventually striking a stratum of coal that will prove of sufficient extent to warrant the erection of hoisting works. Messrs. Ferguson & Young are running a cross-drift from the bottom of the shaft, but will soon commence to sink again,— Eurcha Sentinel. ° Movixc Decision.—The Interior Department has decided that the adverse elaims¢o be considered mnst be sworn to by the party claiming adversely and not hy the attorney. Hearings may be had to determine whether the legal expenditure has been made on the mine for which a patent is desired. The expenditure of more than $15,000 by owners of the adjoining mine on a portion of a tunnel running through tho premises embraced in the application for patents, in case the applicants were to have an interest of such tunnel, is considered an expenditure under the mining laws upon the claim applied for. Userut INfoRMATION. Science and the Sea Serpent. Professor Proctor, the well-known English astronomer, has an inechnation toward a belicf in tho sea serpent which has taxed people’s credulity for so longa time. In the S?, Nicholas ho writes: lthink it may interest your readers to jot down afew faets—some of which are not commonly known, . believe, while others are vomnionly overlooked or forgotten. 1. A great number of foolish stories have becn tokl about the sea serpent by anonyurons hoaxera: so that, 2. Persons of known name are apt to be ashamed, rather than otherwise, to describe any sea cresture (or appearance) which they suppose to be the sca serpent. Yet, 3. In 1817, eleven Massachnsetts witnesses of good repnte gave evidence on oath before magistrates (oue of whom corroborated the evidence from his own observatiou}) abont a serpentine sca ereature 70 or 80 feet long, scen in some cases within a few yards. 1t presented all the features afterward described by the officers of the Diedalus, 4. Iu 1833, five British officers record a similar experienee. 5. In 1848, the captain of a British frigate sent to the Admiralty an official description of such a creature, seen (by himself and his officers) traveling past his ship, close by, so that he “could have recognized the features” of a human person at the distance ‘with the naked eye, 6, Captain Harrington and_ his officers saw such a creature in 1858, under such cirenmstances that he says: ‘‘I could no more be deceived than (2s a seaman) 1 could mistake a porpoise for a whale.” 7. Tbe story last related, marvelous though it is (rejected on that account, when first received as a prohahle hoax), has been deposed to ou oatb by all who were on board the Pauline at the time. The captain of the Pauline writes me that, instead of being anxious to tell the story, he aud his officers and crew were in twenty minds to keep it to themselves, knowing that they would be exposed to ridicule and worse. 8. Itis certain tbat creatures of tbe kind— i. ¢., not sea serpents, which few believe iu, but sea saurians—were formerly numerous, 9, Of other creatures numerous at the same time occasional living specimens are still found. 10, Agassiz states that it would be in precise conformity with analogy that such an animal as the eualiosaur should exist still in the American seas, 1l. Of several existent sea creatures only very few specimens haye ever been seeu (in some cases ouly one). With these and like facts before us, we may believe that the above-mentioned observers were deceived and doubt whether any enaliosaurs continue to exist. But there is no scientific reason for denying the possibility of their existing and being occasionally seen. The foolish stories told by hoaxers have no bearing on the case one way or another. At least, they should have no bearing with those who can reason aright. Patnrep Roors.—S. W. Jewett, of Shepherd Home, Vt., writes to the drgus and Patriot: Cast your eye over any village, or country town, and you find looming up thousands of naked roofs of shingle, unprotected by a coating from the painter's hrush. You can travel through the States and not find, perhaps, on your road, even one building where the shingles have heen decorated and preserved by oils and paints. If outside walls are preserved and benefited, why not see to the roofs as well, and apply a suitahle coat of paint to preserve, adorn and decorate the whole? I was born and have lived under roofs thoroughly paiuted nearly all my life, aud my experience tells me that for a better system of management the roof should be the Hirst to save and protect. If paints are immediately applied, it guards against shrinkage, warping, splitting, leakage and the gathering of tine woody down, and moss from growing to the shingles, where sparks might lodge and ignite the whole into one yast flame. Even the wearing and preserving of the roof for many years, if for no other reason, should be a sufficieut inducement to add to the expense a full finish from the painter’s pot, HlorserLesnH ror Human Foov.—In 1875, the horse butcheries of Paris furnished, for public consumption, 6,865 horses, asses and mules; in 1876 they furnished 9,271, giving 1,685,470 kilogrammes of neat moat. At Lyons, the number has diminished from 1,262 in 1875 to 1,088 in 1876. On the 1st of January there were 58 butcheries in Paris and only seven in Lyons. At its meeting, on January 9th, the committee de la viande de cheval awarded a silver medal to M. Petard, who has nine butcheries in Paris, as a reward for his enterprise. Aw Exormous Prece or CoaL.—Last week an enormous piece of coal, which we understand is intended for exhibition in London, was drawn cout of the Edmunds Main colliery, near Barnsley. It measures five feet square and three feet thick, and weighs about a ton and a half, in. cluding both the hard and soft seams. APPLICATION oF Motive PowrEr.—Sonie iinportant discoveries have been made by Mr. George Beesley, C. E., of Kennington, England, to whon: must be given the honor of showing that when nsed for locomotive purposes a wheel rotates upon its periphery, and that advantage is gamed by setting the cranks dead fore and aft, or at 180° from caclrother. The impossibility, or otherwise, of encountering a dead point with the cranks so set has been supposed by some engineers to have heen already aseertained, but their mistake probably arises from their having used the wrong kind of cngiue. Mr. Beesley’s intention appears to he to run loco. motives with two separate (perhaps two on each side of the boiler) single-acting condensing cngines, “as the strokes of the two engines occur alteruatcly.” Amongst the advantages of the invention Mr. Beesley claiins that by its nse much lighter engines than those now employed will have sufficient adhesion to draw an equal load, so that he would scem capable of entirely superscding a previous suggestion for using putty around the driving whecl tires for the same purpose. By way of appendix he gives enrious little treatiso upon the application and resolution of force, which will certainly not sith. . ject himto the charge of plagiariam upou the writiugs of recognized matliematical authoritics who have preceded him. Throughout the pamphlet there is evidence of freedom of thought seldom met with, so that it is well worth perns. ing, Forrstry.—Franklin B. Howe, of Lowville, Lewis county, N. Y., has been appointed, uuder act of Congress, to prepare a report ou forest trees, He begs assistance from botanists, entomologists and others. He wants names of native timher trees in any section, accounts of cases in which after destruction of one kind of timber auother has come up, accounts of experiments in forest planting, effects of climate on trees or of forests on chmate, insect ravages, or other facts of interest. Execrric $igNais.—During the past year a patent electric system has been introduced on the trains of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore railroad. This system supersedes the present bell and cord arrangement to communicate with the engineer, and also gives a coutinuous automatie alarm on the locomotive whenever any portion of the train hecomes accidentally detached. The arrangement is also applied to freight trains. Qoop HeaLTtl. Vegetation and Health. The Popular Science Monthly does not forget occasional articles on hygiene and kindred topics. The August number has several papers of interest to the hygienist, from which we make a few extracts. Iua paper on the ‘‘Climatic Intluence of Vegetation,” we find tbe following paragraphs: The exhilarating influence of, a woodland excursion is not altogether due to sceiie effects aud imagination. Forests exhale oxygen, the life-air of flames and animal lungs, and absorh or ueutralize a variety of noxious gasses. Scirrhous affections of the skin and other diseases disappear under the disinfecting influence of forest air. Dr. Brehm observes that ophthalmia and leprosy, which have become hereditary diseases, not only in the valley of the Nile, but also on the table lands of Barca and Tripoli, are utterly unknown in the well timhered valley of Abyssinia, though the Abyssinians live more than 100 geographical miles nearer to the equator than their aftlicted neighbors. The valley of the Guadalquivir, as late as a century before the discovery of America, supported a population of 7,000,000 of probably the healthiest and happiest men of Southern Enrope. Since the live-oak and chestnut groves of the surrouuding hights have disappeared, this population has shrunk to a million and a quarter of sickly wretches, who depend for their sustenaace on the scant produce of sandy barrens that become sandier and drier from year to year. 1t would be exaggeration to say that the barrenness of a treeless country is an evil without remedy. Nature is always ready to assist in any work of regeneration, and there is no desert go void and naked that it might not be reclaimed in the course of half a century. The Khedive of Egypt has wrested land from the sand wastes, as the Hollanders win it from the sea, and by a cheaper process than the building of extonsive dikes, By planting date-palms and olive trees, Egypt has added many hundred square miles to her arable surface, and, as Baka-Pasha assures us, her annual rainfall has almost doubled. Between Karnak and Soodan, the rain-gauge shows now a yearly average of sixteen inches, where nine inches was the maximum before 1820. And not only the limit of these tree plantations, but also the adjoining districts, have heen benetited; on the tahle-land of Wady-Halfa the present temperature is not nearly as oppressive as it was within the memory of men now living, and currant bushes and wild mulberries have sprung up where they never grew before. In France, too, the government has reclaimed the Landes, a sandy steppe on the southwesteru coast, by planting willows and bay trees; and eyen Algeria has heen improved by the persistent tree eulture of the French colonists. What an old Miller Thinks. What an old miller thinks about flonr, as related to health and nohrishment, is worth » moment's reflection. R. Moody, of Maine, writes to the N. Y. 7ribune as follows: On farms that have becu cropped many years, and have not been supplied with enougb of the proper kind of plaut food to perfect the growth, wheat is much inferior in quality as well as in quautity to what it was half a century ago. Fifty-tive or tifty-six years simve 1 began flouring wheat iu this place, and am now doing the same (at 72 ycars of age), and van sec a marked deelme in the condition of the grain as it is bronght to the mill; but [ have never seen or heard of any process hy which 1] thought flour from any quality of wheat could be improved further than to free it from all foreign substance, and clean perfectly the exterior of the wheat; then if the wheat is perfected in growth aud well cared for, it is, when well ground and bolted, fit food for man, but better if not bolted or sifted at all I think fresh ground . the hest; ago will whiten tbe flour, hnt allim. ) provement in whiteness (if it is an improvement) causes corresponding depreciation in strength. And yet the present strife among millers scems to asccrtain who shall lead in making the whitest four, and especially the whitest from the middlings, he result is that the manufacturer who makes the whitest from sound and clean grain deprives the vonsumer of the most life-sustaining elenients. The manufacturers spend millions in improved machinery to divest the flour of its most essential parta, which tbe cousumers have to pay twice dearly for; first, the great cost of machinery in cash; second, and most essential, the enervating condition of tho physical system, which in these days, ia uot oyer-taxed with nerve-food or sunlight. But so long as tbe eyes of the masses are their gods, I presume they will suhject hoth the inner and outer inau to all kinds of torture for this visionary gratification. Wuy Gotp CHancks Coror.—It is well known, says the Jemeler, that the human body contains humors and acids, similar in action to, and having a lke tendcney towards, hascr metals, as nitric and sulphuric acid have, viz., to tarnish and dissolve them, varying in quantity in different persons; and of which theory we have ahundant proof in the effects which the wearing of jewelry produces on different persons. ‘Thousands wear contiuually, without any ill effect, the cheaper class of jewelry with brass ear-wires, whilst if others wore tbe same article for a few days, they would be tronhled with sore ears; or, in other words, the acids contained in the system would so act on the lrass as to produce ill results. Instances have occured in which articles of jewelry of any grade helow 18 carat have beeu tarnished in a few days, merely from tbe above-named cause. True, these instanccs are not very frequent; nevertheless it is as well to know them, and they are sufficient to prove that it is not in every case the fault of the goods not wearing well—as it is generally called—but the result of the particular constitution by which they are worn, How Poisons arg Spreav.—G, Owen Rees, Consulting Physician to Guy’s Hospital, London, has called public attention to some unexpected sources of arsenical poisoning, The green calico lining of bed curtaius has heen found to have produced, for mouths, severe symptoms, which were treated as those of natural disease, without benefit to the patients. When the curtains were removed the patieuts at ouce recovered their healtb, The heautiful pale-green muslin, largely used for ladies’ dresses, has been found to contaiu not less than 60 grains of the arsenical compound knowu as Scheele’s green in every square yard. He suggests that, in order to prevent much of the nausea, vomiting, headache, inflammation of the eyes, etc., from which so many suffer, there be a prohibition of the manufacture of such deleterious fabrics. Red, scarlet, and mauve-colored fabrics are not always free from arsenic. He adds that the agitation of skirts im dancing discharges arsenical poisou, which probably causes some of the pallor aud langnor almost always wholly attributed to ill-ventilated and crowded rooms and bad champagne. Lemonape.—It is not in vain that nature has given us a taste for lemon juice, and that some persons have often a craving for it; this indicates a want of thesystem. Ships going on loug voyages now take lemon juice on board as the best antidote against scurvy, that dread of the mariuer, and the result of the privation of vegetable food or fruit, for which lemon juice is a general substitute. We notice an item of the effectiveness of lemon juice in another form of impurity of blood, of which carbuncle is a symptom aud an outlet at the same time. Dr. Gibbons, having been a sufferer from carbunele, relates bis own case, i which lemon juice (for which he felt a desire) seemed to have a most beneficial effect. Wine, whisky, tonics, aud all the usual remedies, gave him no relief, and did not help digestion. As goon as he took lemon juice digestion improved, as well asthe local symptoms; and the effect was such that he intends to treat his patients in the same way. We have found in other diseases lemon juice a most. grateful remedy, especially where (as Dr. Gihbons mentions in his own case) there is a desire for acid drinks and vegetahles,

August 25, 1877.] MINING AND SCIENTIFIC PRESS 119 Mining for Gold in Black Sand. A correspondent df the Willamette Farmer, writing from Coquille City, Coos Co., gives a long secount of the Black sand mines, from which we extract the following: ‘The inining region is an old beach, two and one-half miles from the present one. Two companies are working here, about one-fourth of a mile apart. The Black sand is laid in a strata from twu to six fect thick and 50 to 100 feet bencath the surface. The “ect,” atthe mouth of tho tunnels, having been slniced ont to a ‘lepth of 50 feet, the formation is clearly shown, consisting entirely of sand; grey, white, and yellow; old sand lie covered with a few inches of soil, and a growth of giant firs and cedars, which might have served in the days of King Solumon, for beams and rafters, for the house of his favorite concubine. Large trees, lying prone, evidently drift logs, are encountered in the tunnels. At the timo of iny visit the workmen were entting throngh one of naknuwn wood, 90 fect helow the surface. Another, cut thronyh in the same tunnel, a redwood (Segnoi) over four feet iu diameter, showed nnmistakable evidence of having been subjected to pounding in the surf. These logs are 72 feet ahove the prescnt sea level, ina hilly, alniost mountainons country, made up almost entircly of pure sand carrying a heavy growth of old trees; they tell the story of the lapse of timo in this loeality, where rolled the boundless Pacific ‘‘ hearing no suuud savo its own tlashing;’ and the same formatien also shows by what imperceptable degrees the waters followed the Star of Empire, and tlie strip of two and one-half iniles of ferra desxsieata has heen added to the west shore of the American continent. And still the process is going on, aud onr Uncle Samucl is not only yaiuing grouud, but the tireless occan is expending its cnergics for the henetit of man, and continually casting up its golden sands within reach of the lucky ininer, ‘The richest sand is said te bo on the present beach, where it is covered with water at every tide, Various theories are advanced to explain this gradual receding of the ocean; but perhaps as genious and satisfactory as any is that of the sailor, who acconuts for it in this wise: That as tbe earth whirls rapidly to the east, the water being a heavy liquid and easily movahle, is unahle to keep pace with the motion, and therefore naturally slashes round to the other side. ‘‘ Qnien Sabhe.” The hlack sand is believed to have come from the coast monntaius, being brought down by the streams tothe sea, and then beat up ashore. This being true, it follows logically that black sand containing gold should he found more or less all along the coast. The sand resembles very fine-grained gunpowder, but is not entirely hlack. Tie a magnifier it shows beautiful, clear, polished black grains interspersed witb differently tiuted agates, from clcar white, and transparent, toaruby red. The gold is very fine, almost microscopic in its character, and is therefore very difficult to save by ordinary methods, Indeed it is claimed that the sand in the “tailrace” contanis twice the quantity of gold that is taken ont hy the process through which it passes. At tbe C. B.M. Co’s mine the sand is simply washed ina sluice, and passed over a copper plate covered with mercury; but parties lately from San Francisco are putting up at their mine machines known as the Frue concentrator. This machine consists of an endless rubher belt, having a flange standing up on each edge. About seveu feet of this belt lies level laterally, but is inclined lengthwise, so tbat water will run witha brisk current. The belt is given two motions, by suitable machinery; a shaking motion from side to side, and a slow traveling motiou against the current of water flowing over it. On this belt the sand is floated in water and agitated, and the gold shook down onto the belt, where it is expected to adhere; the sand passing on down witb the water into the tailrace; the gold passing with the belt over the pulley, is jarred and washed off on the under side. This machine will, it is claimed, save 80 per cent. of the gold. If so, there is a ‘‘ big honanza” here, and black sand mining will take a front seat among the industries of Oregon. Coat.—Johnny Bell, engineer on the Eureka and Palisade railroad, took on board a cargo of Palisade coal, Sunday afternoon, and tested its quality ou the trip. He reports it as an excellent article of fuel, hurning freely and making steam very fast. The mine has improved all the way from the surface to a depth of 50 feet, and great hopes are entertained of eventually striking a stratum of coal that will prove of sufficient extent to warrant the erection of hoisting works. Messrs. Ferguson & Young are running a cross-drift from the bottom of the shaft, but will soon commence to sink again,— Eurcha Sentinel. ° Movixc Decision.—The Interior Department has decided that the adverse elaims¢o be considered mnst be sworn to by the party claiming adversely and not hy the attorney. Hearings may be had to determine whether the legal expenditure has been made on the mine for which a patent is desired. The expenditure of more than $15,000 by owners of the adjoining mine on a portion of a tunnel running through tho premises embraced in the application for patents, in case the applicants were to have an interest of such tunnel, is considered an expenditure under the mining laws upon the claim applied for. Userut INfoRMATION. Science and the Sea Serpent. Professor Proctor, the well-known English astronomer, has an inechnation toward a belicf in tho sea serpent which has taxed people’s credulity for so longa time. In the S?, Nicholas ho writes: lthink it may interest your readers to jot down afew faets—some of which are not commonly known, . believe, while others are vomnionly overlooked or forgotten. 1. A great number of foolish stories have becn tokl about the sea serpent by anonyurons hoaxera: so that, 2. Persons of known name are apt to be ashamed, rather than otherwise, to describe any sea cresture (or appearance) which they suppose to be the sca serpent. Yet, 3. In 1817, eleven Massachnsetts witnesses of good repnte gave evidence on oath before magistrates (oue of whom corroborated the evidence from his own observatiou}) abont a serpentine sca ereature 70 or 80 feet long, scen in some cases within a few yards. 1t presented all the features afterward described by the officers of the Diedalus, 4. Iu 1833, five British officers record a similar experienee. 5. In 1848, the captain of a British frigate sent to the Admiralty an official description of such a creature, seen (by himself and his officers) traveling past his ship, close by, so that he “could have recognized the features” of a human person at the distance ‘with the naked eye, 6, Captain Harrington and_ his officers saw such a creature in 1858, under such cirenmstances that he says: ‘‘I could no more be deceived than (2s a seaman) 1 could mistake a porpoise for a whale.” 7. Tbe story last related, marvelous though it is (rejected on that account, when first received as a prohahle hoax), has been deposed to ou oatb by all who were on board the Pauline at the time. The captain of the Pauline writes me that, instead of being anxious to tell the story, he aud his officers and crew were in twenty minds to keep it to themselves, knowing that they would be exposed to ridicule and worse. 8. Itis certain tbat creatures of tbe kind— i. ¢., not sea serpents, which few believe iu, but sea saurians—were formerly numerous, 9, Of other creatures numerous at the same time occasional living specimens are still found. 10, Agassiz states that it would be in precise conformity with analogy that such an animal as the eualiosaur should exist still in the American seas, 1l. Of several existent sea creatures only very few specimens haye ever been seeu (in some cases ouly one). With these and like facts before us, we may believe that the above-mentioned observers were deceived and doubt whether any enaliosaurs continue to exist. But there is no scientific reason for denying the possibility of their existing and being occasionally seen. The foolish stories told by hoaxers have no bearing on the case one way or another. At least, they should have no bearing with those who can reason aright. Patnrep Roors.—S. W. Jewett, of Shepherd Home, Vt., writes to the drgus and Patriot: Cast your eye over any village, or country town, and you find looming up thousands of naked roofs of shingle, unprotected by a coating from the painter's hrush. You can travel through the States and not find, perhaps, on your road, even one building where the shingles have heen decorated and preserved by oils and paints. If outside walls are preserved and benefited, why not see to the roofs as well, and apply a suitahle coat of paint to preserve, adorn and decorate the whole? I was born and have lived under roofs thoroughly paiuted nearly all my life, aud my experience tells me that for a better system of management the roof should be the Hirst to save and protect. If paints are immediately applied, it guards against shrinkage, warping, splitting, leakage and the gathering of tine woody down, and moss from growing to the shingles, where sparks might lodge and ignite the whole into one yast flame. Even the wearing and preserving of the roof for many years, if for no other reason, should be a sufficieut inducement to add to the expense a full finish from the painter’s pot, HlorserLesnH ror Human Foov.—In 1875, the horse butcheries of Paris furnished, for public consumption, 6,865 horses, asses and mules; in 1876 they furnished 9,271, giving 1,685,470 kilogrammes of neat moat. At Lyons, the number has diminished from 1,262 in 1875 to 1,088 in 1876. On the 1st of January there were 58 butcheries in Paris and only seven in Lyons. At its meeting, on January 9th, the committee de la viande de cheval awarded a silver medal to M. Petard, who has nine butcheries in Paris, as a reward for his enterprise. Aw Exormous Prece or CoaL.—Last week an enormous piece of coal, which we understand is

intended for exhibition in London, was drawn cout of the Edmunds Main colliery, near Barnsley. It measures five feet square and three feet thick, and weighs about a ton and a half, in. cluding both the hard and soft seams. APPLICATION oF Motive PowrEr.—Sonie iinportant discoveries have been made by Mr. George Beesley, C. E., of Kennington, England, to whon: must be given the honor of showing that when nsed for locomotive purposes a wheel rotates upon its periphery, and that advantage is gamed by setting the cranks dead fore and aft, or at 180° from caclrother. The impossibility, or otherwise, of encountering a dead point with the cranks so set has been supposed by some engineers to have heen already aseertained, but their mistake probably arises from their having used the wrong kind of cngiue. Mr. Beesley’s intention appears to he to run loco. motives with two separate (perhaps two on each side of the boiler) single-acting condensing cngines, “as the strokes of the two engines occur alteruatcly.” Amongst the advantages of the invention Mr. Beesley claiins that by its nse much lighter engines than those now employed will have sufficient adhesion to draw an equal load, so that he would scem capable of entirely superscding a previous suggestion for using putty around the driving whecl tires for the same purpose. By way of appendix he gives enrious little treatiso upon the application and resolution of force, which will certainly not sith. . ject himto the charge of plagiariam upou the writiugs of recognized matliematical authoritics who have preceded him. Throughout the pamphlet there is evidence of freedom of thought seldom met with, so that it is well worth perns. ing, Forrstry.—Franklin B. Howe, of Lowville, Lewis county, N. Y., has been appointed, uuder act of Congress, to prepare a report ou forest trees, He begs assistance from botanists, entomologists and others. He wants names of native timher trees in any section, accounts of cases in which after destruction of one kind of timber auother has come up, accounts of experiments in forest planting, effects of climate on trees or of forests on chmate, insect ravages, or other facts of interest. Execrric $igNais.—During the past year a patent electric system has been introduced on the trains of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore railroad. This system supersedes the present bell and cord arrangement to communicate with the engineer, and also gives a coutinuous automatie alarm on the locomotive whenever any portion of the train hecomes accidentally detached. The arrangement is also applied to freight trains. Qoop HeaLTtl. Vegetation and Health. The Popular Science Monthly does not forget occasional articles on hygiene and kindred topics. The August number has several papers of interest to the hygienist, from which we make a few extracts. Iua paper on the ‘‘Climatic Intluence of Vegetation,” we find tbe following paragraphs: The exhilarating influence of, a woodland excursion is not altogether due to sceiie effects aud imagination. Forests exhale oxygen, the life-air of flames and animal lungs, and absorh or ueutralize a variety of noxious gasses. Scirrhous affections of the skin and other diseases disappear under the disinfecting influence of forest air. Dr. Brehm observes that ophthalmia and leprosy, which have become hereditary diseases, not only in the valley of the Nile, but also on the table lands of Barca and Tripoli, are utterly unknown in the well timhered valley of Abyssinia, though the Abyssinians live more than 100 geographical miles nearer to the equator than their aftlicted neighbors. The valley of the Guadalquivir, as late as a century before the discovery of America, supported a population of 7,000,000 of probably the healthiest and happiest men of Southern Enrope. Since the live-oak and chestnut groves of the surrouuding hights have disappeared, this population has shrunk to a million and a quarter of sickly wretches, who depend for their sustenaace on the scant produce of sandy barrens that become sandier and drier from year to year. 1t would be exaggeration to say that the barrenness of a treeless country is an evil without remedy. Nature is always ready to assist in any work of regeneration, and there is no desert go void and naked that it might not be reclaimed in the course of half a century. The Khedive of Egypt has wrested land from the sand wastes, as the Hollanders win it from the sea, and by a cheaper process than the building of extonsive dikes, By planting date-palms and olive trees, Egypt has added many hundred square miles to her arable surface, and, as Baka-Pasha assures us, her annual rainfall has almost doubled. Between Karnak and Soodan, the rain-gauge shows now a yearly average of sixteen inches, where nine inches was the maximum before 1820. And not only the limit of these tree plantations, but also the adjoining districts, have heen benetited; on the tahle-land of Wady-Halfa the present temperature is not nearly as oppressive as it was within the memory of men now living, and currant bushes and wild mulberries have sprung up where they never grew before. In France, too, the government has reclaimed the Landes, a sandy steppe on the southwesteru coast, by planting willows and bay trees; and eyen Algeria has heen improved by the persistent tree eulture of the French colonists. What an old Miller Thinks. What an old miller thinks about flonr, as related to health and nohrishment, is worth » moment's reflection. R. Moody, of Maine, writes to the N. Y. 7ribune as follows: On farms that have becu cropped many years, and have not been supplied with enougb of the proper kind of plaut food to perfect the growth, wheat is much inferior in quality as well as in quautity to what it was half a century ago. Fifty-tive or tifty-six years simve 1 began flouring wheat iu this place, and am now doing the same (at 72 ycars of age), and van sec a marked deelme in the condition of the grain as it is bronght to the mill; but [ have never seen or heard of any process hy which 1] thought flour from any quality of wheat could be improved further than to free it from all foreign substance, and clean perfectly the exterior of the wheat; then if the wheat is perfected in growth aud well cared for, it is, when well ground and bolted, fit food for man, but better if not bolted or sifted at all I think fresh ground . the hest; ago will whiten tbe flour, hnt allim. ) provement in whiteness (if it is an improvement) causes corresponding depreciation in strength. And yet the present strife among millers scems to asccrtain who shall lead in making the whitest four, and especially the whitest from the middlings, he result is that the manufacturer who makes the whitest from sound and clean grain deprives the vonsumer of the most life-sustaining elenients. The manufacturers spend millions in improved machinery to divest the flour of its most essential parta, which tbe cousumers have to pay twice dearly for; first, the great cost of machinery in cash; second, and most essential, the enervating condition of tho physical system, which in these days, ia uot oyer-taxed with nerve-food or sunlight. But so long as tbe eyes of the masses are their gods, I presume they will suhject hoth the inner and outer inau to all kinds of torture for this visionary gratification. Wuy Gotp CHancks Coror.—It is well known, says the Jemeler, that the human body contains humors and acids, similar in action to, and having a lke tendcney towards, hascr metals, as nitric and sulphuric acid have, viz., to tarnish and dissolve them, varying in quantity in different persons; and of which theory we have ahundant proof in the effects which the wearing of jewelry produces on different persons. ‘Thousands wear contiuually, without any ill effect, the cheaper class of jewelry with brass ear-wires, whilst if others wore tbe same article for a few days, they would be tronhled with sore ears; or, in other words, the acids contained in the system would so act on the lrass as to produce ill results. Instances have occured in which articles of jewelry of any grade helow 18 carat have beeu tarnished in a few days, merely from tbe above-named cause. True, these instanccs are not very frequent; nevertheless it is as well to know them, and they are sufficient to prove that it is not in every case the fault of the goods not wearing well—as it is generally called—but the result of the particular constitution by which they are worn, How Poisons arg Spreav.—G, Owen Rees, Consulting Physician to Guy’s Hospital, London, has called public attention to some unexpected sources of arsenical poisoning, The green calico lining of bed curtaius has heen found to have produced, for mouths, severe symptoms, which were treated as those of natural disease, without benefit to the patients. When the curtains were removed the patieuts at ouce recovered their healtb, The heautiful pale-green muslin, largely used for ladies’ dresses, has been found to contaiu not less than 60 grains of the arsenical compound knowu as Scheele’s green in every square yard. He suggests that, in order to prevent much of the nausea, vomiting, headache, inflammation of the eyes, etc., from which so many suffer, there be a prohibition of the manufacture of such deleterious fabrics. Red, scarlet, and mauve-colored fabrics are not always free from arsenic. He adds that the agitation of skirts im dancing discharges arsenical poisou, which probably causes some of the pallor aud langnor almost always wholly attributed to ill-ventilated and crowded rooms and bad champagne. Lemonape.—It is not in vain that nature has given us a taste for lemon juice, and that some persons have often a craving for it; this indicates a want of thesystem. Ships going on loug voyages now take lemon juice on board as the best antidote against scurvy, that dread of the mariuer, and the result of the privation of vegetable food or fruit, for which lemon juice is a general substitute. We notice an item of the effectiveness of lemon juice in another form of impurity of blood, of which carbuncle is a symptom aud an outlet at the same time. Dr. Gibbons, having been a sufferer from carbunele, relates bis own case, i which lemon juice (for which he felt a desire) seemed to have a most beneficial effect. Wine, whisky, tonics, aud all the usual remedies, gave him no relief, and did not help digestion. As goon as he took lemon juice digestion improved, as well asthe local symptoms; and the effect was such that he intends to treat his patients in the same way. We have found in other diseases lemon juice a most. grateful remedy, especially where (as Dr. Gihbons mentions in his own case) there is a desire for acid drinks and vegetahles,