Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/349

 ■»*-itb the proper melhoda of manipulating it. Some brands are found to weld tike iron, while others will not weld, and are brillle. No accident of serious Olisracter has yet occarred, however, lo any steel l>oiler, BO far as reported. It is not yet fully ascer- t-siued to what extent deterioration may affect the safety of steel boilers. It is anticipated, hovever, tbat the metal Is likely to prove more satisfactory iu tfaia respect than Iron. Steel rivets are used to aoine extent, and theiraseiscontinualty Increasing. More care is requisite in their working than Is demanded In the use of iron rivets. It is desirable that all parts of the boiler, and, as far as possible, of its nppurte- nftnces, should be made of steel, in order that voltaic Action and consequent corrosion may lie avoided. Steel plates are usually drilled. Instead of being panched, as it li found that st«el is more liable to injury by punching than iron.

— The seventh volume of the Bulletin of the Na- tioaal academy of sciences, of Cordoba, is entirely occupied with a monograph on Staphylinldoe, or rove- beetlea, of Buenos Ayres, by ArribiUaga, which Is completed with the third number, just received, mak- ing altogether nearly four hundred pages.

— The Forlugueae explorer, Serpa Pinto, has under- taken a fresh expedition into central Africa. He in- tends to start from Mozambique in the direction of Lake Tanganyika, crossing the Miiropue country, -where he hopes lo meet with the Portuguese Kongo expedition.

— A French commission has left Marseilles to further the Roubnire scheme of an inland se^ In the .Airican desert. The destination of the comihlssion is Oabes, where a harbor is to be made as an outlet for the connecting canal.

— Town councillor Helm of Dantzlg has given his collection of three thousand specimens of amber iu- ■eels, and seven thousnnd beetles, to the West-Prus- sian provincial museum, on condition that they are left in his own house during his lifetime.

— The British steamship Chicago, Capt. Jones. ""eat, at two p.m., a very heavy vapor was observed 'h|a vapor were hundreds of miniature water-spouts, ''■Sing about twenty feet high. Immediately over this ('Am of the water was a large, black, arched cloud. "^he barometer at the time was 3i),00, air iS", water ^l*"; winds moderate from the southward.
 * ports that on Afarch 25, iu 41° 14' north, 02" 10'
 * >it the surface of the sea; and distributed about In

— In the April number of the American Journal of '•*«Wema(ica, the contributors, seven in all, halt, two '*X>m Baltimore, and one each from Paris, the Royal
 * juiemy at Woolwich, Toronto, Bremen, and Porto.

— Among recent deaths we note the following: ^tajor F. J. Sidney Parry, one of the oldest mem-
 * ^ra of the Entomological society of London, In The

'barren, Bushey Heath, Feb. 1; J. A. Serret, mathe- •*»atician, at Paris, March 3; Nicolas Sewertzow, "^ "!r of the Royal academy of sciences siiieo ISW, L Petenburg, In his eighty-third year; Geoffrey
 * »>61ogiat, Feb, 0; Gen. G. von Helmersen, geologist,

��Nevill, formerly assistant superintendent of the Indian museum at Calcntta, at Davos, Feb. 10; Dr. Emat Erhard Sehmld, professor of mineralogy in the university of Jena, at Jena, Feb. 16, in his seventy- first year; Carl Theodore Ernalvon Siebold, professor of Torilogy in the university of Munich, at the age of eighty.

— Al a meeting of the Society of chemical industry, held in Glasgow on March 3, Mr. James Murrie read a paper on the processes employed in Italy for the extraction of oils, etc., from bitummous rocks in that country. At the outset he said that the Italian gov- ernment had given great facilities for developing the internal resources of the country, particularly with regard to carbonaceous deposits. There was a gen- eral belief that a belt of ol! passed through the Apen- ninea in the direction of Goumania, and curved out near Bucharest, There was, however, really no snch thing as an oil-belt In Italy. The deposit of oil and bituminous rocks, which bad received the greatest attention, was situated in a spur of the Apennines known as the AbruMo, in the province o( Chleti, twenty miles inland from the town of Pescara.on the Adriatic. The indications of bitumen occurred in the form of asphaltk rock, found In a superficial deposit on the slope of the mountain. Going on to apeak of the extraction and manufacture of oil from the rock, Mr. Murrie remarked that about twenty companies had started operations (or the purpose of utilizing this mineral. These ventures bad invariably turned out failures; the cost of refining it being too high, and the density of the oil produced too great, to allow of its being used for burning-purposes. So far as his observation went, the oi.ly uses It could be put to were in streeUlighting, for mining-purposes, and In the preparation of lubrlcating-oils.

-^ In addition to the numerous uses to which the wonderful network of Parisian sewers has already been put, we learn from La lumlere (leclrique that the lines of telephone- wires are now being placed upon these undei^ound walls. This Is simply fol- lowing the example of the telegraph companies, who did the same in 1S80. The sewers also contain two large water-pipes, — one for household, the other for sprinkling purposes; and, besides, a pneumatic tube used for the transmission of messages, and a smaller pipe which tranemits the air-pressure for the system of pneumntlc clocks distributed throughout Paris.

— Mr. E. E. H. Francis recently read a paper at the London chemical society Iu which he shown] that fit- ter-paper, ordinarily so weak, can be rendered tough, andatthesame time pervious to liquids, by Immersing it in nitric acid of relative density 1.42, then washing It in water. The product Is different from parchment paper wade with sulphuric acid, and it can be washed and rubbed like a piece of linen. It contracts in slio under the treatment, and undergoes a slight de- crease of weight; the nitrogen being removed, and the ash diminished.

— The king of the Belgians has planned nn Inter- national geographical society, and has summoned _ Mil lie-Edwards of Paris lo be his helper therein.

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