Various

“ Unless the carbonic acid gas is very completely "baffled" in its ascent through the coke in the producer, a quantity of it passes into the furnace along with the carbonic oxide, the efficiency of which is diminished in proportion as the former increases in quantity. Of course, also, the nitrogen associated with the oxygen in the air admitted to the gas generator passes on with the carbonic oxide gas, this nitrogen acting as a dilutant and being of course absolutely useless as a generator of heat. The steam which we previously spoke of serves two good purposes. ”

“ Now consider the waves to be waves of light, and their origin the sun. The organ of sense is the retina of the eye. The moon is the opaque body interposed in the course of the waves, and they, being bent, make the impression on the eye that the light comes from beyond the edge of the sun. The moon covers the sun during the eclipse and a little more, so that it can move for about five minutes and still cover the sun entirely. This movement is very slight, and if the corona consists of light from a solar atmosphere, it should not change at all during this movement of the moon. ”

“ No other kind of heat will bake batch-bread--i.e., loaves packed in contact with one another--which requires to be thoroughly soaked by a radiant heat in a close atmosphere of its own steam. Now, as a coal fire is eminently qualified to impart, by radiation and otherwise, this necessary store of heat to the brickwork, it is plainly a difficulty to effect the same purpose with a fuel which, of itself, can scarcely radiate heat at all. The system of the gas cooking-oven--the utilization of the heat of the combustion products as formed--is clearly inapplicable here ”

“ The miner digs the well or shaft just as we dig our water wells, and the dirt and rock are hoisted up in a bucket by a rope and windlass. But one man can work in the shaft at a time. For many years no water was found; but, as there is a deposit of petroleum under the ozokerite, at a depth of six hundred feet from the surface, the miners were troubled with gas. ”

“ If it were not for the monument to the Ameses, there would be nothing to mark the highest point. For all the wonderful scenery on the Rio Grande road, between Cimarron and Pueblo, the Union Pacific in the same longitudes has nothing to show. From an artistic stand-point, one road has crossed the ranges at the most tame and uninteresting point that could be found, and the other at the most picturesque.
At Cimarron, the road again strikes the Gunnison, and plunges into the famous Black Cañon. ”

“ If we continue to put on six loads per day until the mow is full, the principal part of that moisture must rise through the entire mass. To relieve the hay of moisture, I deem it best to have several places of storage, and change daily or semi-daily from one to the other, thus giving time for a share of the moisture to pass off. To facilitate this evaporation and prevent the hay from reabsorbing it and becoming musty, the best of ventilation is necessary. Ventilation above a clover mow is as necessary as it is above a sugar or fruit evaporator. ”

“ Another advantage is that, as the fuel used in the furnaces is wholly gaseous, choking of the flues cannot by any possibility arise. It is the confident opinion of Mr. Foulis that the system in question can be applied with advantage to all sizes of gas works, and that it is certainly well adapted for all works where the summer consumption of gas is sufficiently large to give employment to eight retorts.
As this is the first instance of the new form of gas producer and regenerator having been adopted in any gas works, a very great amount of scientific and practical interest attaches to it. ”

“ These corals gave the lake a wonderful variety of colors, forming a picture impossible to paint or describe, and with the least ripple from a passing breeze the whole scene changed to new groups of color. The water was very clear, and in some places deep; in others so filled with coral that a boat could barely skim over the surface without scraping the keel. After crossing a long reef, one day, they entered on a sheet of water so deep that their longest line would not reach the bottom, plainly visible beneath. ”

“ There exists a large mining and manufacturing industry in Austria, that of ozokerite, or earth-wax, which has nothing like it in any other part of the known world, an industry that supplies Europe with a part of its beeswax, without the aid of the bees. It may not be generally known that the mining of petroleum was a profitable industry in Austria long before it was in this country. ”

“ More to the purpose of the journeyman baker, however, is the fact that there is no stoking to be done, and he can therefore take his repose at night without having to attend to the furnace. Besides this the master has the satisfaction of knowing that the oven will always be hot enough if he simply attends to the time of lighting the gas--a consideration of no small moment. ”

“ It is evident, however, that there must be considerable waste of gas in heating a mass of tiles and brickwork, such as go to the construction of a common baker's oven, from the outside; and the objection to handicapping such a costly fuel as gas in this manner becomes more apparent when it is remembered that in the usual way the oven is always heated by an internal coal fire. ”

“ By pulling out one of the buttons of the wind chest, we admit the air through eleven holes at a time, having an angular distance of 30° and directing it against the corresponding circle of holes on the turning disk. If the arrangement of holes is not repeated identically twelve times on the same circle, we cannot, of course, make use of the above arrangements of holes of the wind tube, and we must then employ one of the movable brass tubes, which communicate with the interior of the wind chest by means of rubber tubes and stopcocks. ”

“ This beautiful Agave is now in blossom in the garden here, and I am happy to be able to send you photographs of it. This is the first time it has ever blossomed in cultivation, and it has never been seen in flower in a wild state. It is a mature native-grown specimen, dense in habit, and perfectly semi-spherical in form, and the leaves are arranged in spiral fashion with as much regularity as those of a screw pine. ”

“ WOOLEN FABRICS PURIFIED BY HYDROCHLORIC ACID GAS.
All known methods for chemically purifying woolen stuffs from vegetable fibers depend on the action of acids or substances of acid reaction. The excessive temperature, hitherto unavoidable in the operation, acts injuriously on the woolen fibers, especially during the formation of hydrochloric acid, with which process especially the development of an injuriously high temperature has been hitherto unavoidable. The best method of absorbing the heat developed is in the evaporation of the moisture naturally present in the wool. ”

“ The air necessary for combustion is first admitted into a large chamber in the center, and then it is divided into two currents, which pass right and left into the central passages of the two regenerators. As the air flue is at a very bright heat for a considerable distance before the air leaves it, the temperature of the air must be equally great, or nearly so. In its most improved form one of these heat regenerative furnaces provides an amount of heating surface extending to 234 square ft., which is exposed to the air on its way to the combustion chamber. ”

“ The experiment in question is nothing less than the application of gas for heating bakers' ovens, in a manner not hitherto attempted, and such as to bring the system within the means of the poorest tradesman in all but the smallest towns. It will be remembered that the success of the gas-heated muffles for burning tiles and glass led to the attempted construction of a model baker's oven, heated by the same fuel, which was shown in action at the Smoke Abatement Exhibition at South Kensington in the winter of 1881-82. ”

“ When the partial or total conversion of the liquid has been effected (this being ascertained by chlorometric tests) , the pump, P, is set rapidly in operation, and, as a consequence, draws up the chloride of sodium from the bottom of the vessel, C, to the lower part of the electrolyzer, A. The hypochlorite that has formed passes through the tube, D (as a natural consequence of the elevation of the level of the liquid in A brought about by the entrance of a new supply of chloride) , and distributes itself throughout the vessel, C, where it acts upon the textile material. ”

“ A direct transformation of one modification into the other has not yet been accomplished. The effect of the light upon these substances is incipient reduction, and we might hence suppose that the more reducible indigo sensitive variety would be the more sensitive to light. But this is not the case, because it is not chemical reducibility, but the absorption power for light that is of the greatest importance. Now the blue sensitive silver bromide has a greater absorption power than the indigo sensitive variety, and hence its greater sensitiveness. ”

“ When mixed with chloride of sodium and sulphuric acid it causes an evolution of chlorine, the other resulting products being sulphate of soda and sulphate of protoxide of manganese. When mixed with acids, it is a valuable oxidizing agent. It is much used for the preparation of oxygen, either by simply heating it, when it yields 12 per cent. of gas, or by heating it with sulphuric acid, when it yields 18 per cent. Besides its many uses in the laboratory, it is employed in the manufacture of glass, porcelain, and kindred wares. ”

“ It is known from study of the sun that the gaseous pressure at the surface must be less than an inch of mercury, and is probably less than one-tenth of an inch, but an atmosphere extending to the supposed limits would cause an enormous pressure at the sun's surface, especially since the force of gravity on the sun is very much greater than on the earth. 2. The laws of gravitation would require a solar atmosphere to be distributed symmetrically around the sun, while the corona is enormously irregular in form. ”

“ The version of the fragments, literally rendered, runs as follows:
"I am God, thy God, which liberated thee from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Ye shall have no other gods. Ye shall not make to yourselves any graven image, nor any likeness that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. Ye shall not bow down to them nor serve them. I am God, your God. ”

“ Passing from the producer through the flue provided for it, the gas enters the retort setting underneath the side retorts, where it meets the air coming from the regenerator. It enters the setting, not by a number of small openings, but by one large opening on each side, and meets the air entering also by a large opening, the effect of which is to avoid the localization of intense heat, as all the retorts of the setting become enveloped in an intensely heating flame, due to the combustion of the carbonic oxide and hydrogen gases. ”

“ In the third place, by the greater heat which is obtained, the charges can be more rapidly distilled; or heavier charges can be carbonized in a given space of time. When all the gains are put together, the amount of coal carbonized is increased by about 40 per cent. over any specified time. Of course, in the new or regenerator settings there is much greater regularity of heat; and as the gaseous fuel is perfectly free from all solid matter, and burns without any trace of smoke, there is a total absence of deposit on the outside of the retorts. ”

“ If there is not open space and draught sufficient to carry away the moisture, it is returned to the mow, and mould is the inevitable result. No ordinary amount of drying will prevent hay from becoming musty if ventilation is shut off during the sweating process. If a hole is cut through the floor at the bottom of the mow near the center and under a ventilator in the roof and a barrel placed over it and drawn up as the hay is mowed in, thus leaving a hole from bottom to top, evaporation will be facilitated and the quality of the hay improved. ”