laboring men of the country. Aside from the direct value of these inventions in promoting the comfort and increasing the wealth of the country, there is another factor to be considered, having the most vital relation to the industries of the eountry and its powers of production. This great number of inventions implies a high degree of intelligence and great mental activity in the great body of the people. It indicates trained habits of observation and trained powers of applying the knowledge which has been acquired. It shows an ability to turn to account the forces of nature and train them to the service of man such as has been posessed by the laborers of no other country. It suggests as pertinent and most important the inquiry whether any other country is so well equipped for competition in production as our own; whether in any other country the laboring man is

dreary borderland of the staked plains, where they separate pair-wise for greater security, and retreat further hillward at the least sign of danger.

THE PROJECTED TOWER OF PARIS.

Besides the gigantic tower which M. Eiffel proposes to erect for the Paris exhibition of 1889 the center of civilization is to have another great tower, and which is to be used for scientific purposes. M. J. Bourdais has presented to the French Society of Civil Engineers a project for the erection of a masonry tower 985 feet in height. After an examination of the different geometric profiles realizable, M. Bourdais has adopted the column as being more apt than any other form to satisfy the rules of æsthetics, and also as being the most stable. In fact, the highest chimney in the world, that of St. Rollox, as efficient and his labor therefore as cheap as in our own; whether he does been submitted to numerous storms withnear Glasgow, 433 feet in height, has not exhibit the seeming paradox of re-out suffering therefrom, and as other ceiving more for his labor than in any other country, and at the same time doing more for what he receives-giving more for what he receives, and receiving more for what he gives.

chimneys exposed to great wind pressure have never given rise to any accident, it would seem that a cylindrical form is one that should be adopted. M. Bourdais' structure would consist of a base 216 feet high, in which is to be established a permanent museum of electricity. Above this would rise a six storied column surmounted by a roof, forming a promenade, capable of accommodating 60 feet in diameter, would be surrounded 2,000 persons. The central granite core, with an ornamental framework of iron faced with copper. This would be divided into six stories, each containing sixteen rooms, sixteen feet in height and fifty feet square designed for aerotherapic

treatment.

BUFFALO IN SOUTHERN TEXAS. Half a mile from the track one may find sleepy hollows that seem never to have been waked by the scream of the iron horse; hill pastures where the antelope browses as quietly as on the highlands of the Sierra Madre, even while the rocks echo the thunder of a train rushing by on its way to the distant station. And in the hills of the uplands there are rocks that have never heard that echo. Between San Saba and Fort Davis, an area exceeding that of all Tennessee has never grieved the souls of its teamsters by a A press telegram from Denver, dated railroad survey. The northern part of the 11th inst., says: The discovery is this reservation contains one of the few reported of a remarkable flow of petroremaining buffalo pastures on this side of leum from the rocks in the Big Horn the Rocky Mountains. A few miles country in northern Wyoming, east of northeast of Fort Concho, the old mili- the Yellowstone Park. Quite a lake of tary road to New Mexico crosses the oil extends for nearly 500 feet along the mesquite plain, and teamsters who travel side of the rocky bluff, from which it that road in the winter time are pretty constantly drops, and at any point along sure to sight buffalo. Not in herds: the the crevice it can be gathered at the rate bison legions of the North American of a quart a minute. Samples of it show prairies are vanished forever; but troops an absence of the heavier elements like of ten or twelve are still occasionally asphalt. The surveyor who mapped the seen in the upland valleys, especially ground for the discoveries expressed the after a hard frost. In spring, these sur opinion that this discovery has no equal vivors of better times take refuge in the | in the United States.

CYLINDER CONDENSATION.

wire, which cost $150 per mile, and pro

Prof. R. H. Thurston's paper on cylin-tected it in a wooden box that cost $100 der condensation, read at the recent meet- per mile, and the labor amounted to $50 ing of the American Association for the per mile. We were surprised to find how Advancement of Science, was of great easily we could maintain communication scientific and practical value. The fact, with the moving train; how little battery the manner and the effect of the conden- was necessary, ten Bunsen cells being sation in steam cylinders were made sufficient at the terminal station and two clear, even to those but little acquainted cells on the car. with the subject. Nearly all the losses met with in steam engines are due to this cause. Watt found that three-fourths of the steam used in his engine was lost by condensation. In ordinary engines of modern construction about 25 per cent. is the usual loss, while in some large engines this loss has been reduced to 10 or 15 per cent. This waste depends upon the temperature of the surface of the cylinder when the steam enters, the temperature of this surface when the steam is exhausted, the extent of surface exposed, and the time of a revolution of the engine. These four variable elements bear different relations to each other in different engines operating under unlike conditions. The engineer has at present no means of designing an engine for given -conditions for which he can calculate just what will be the waste due to condensation from these causes. The complete solution of the problem requires that experiments be made, first, to ascertain the variation of loss due to a change of one of these quantities, all the others remaining constant, and that the law of such variation be mathematically expressed. A second of these variables is treated in the same manner; and so on until the law of variation of loss due to change in each one of these variables has been expressed. Then, if it be possible to combine all these results into a single formula, this formula will express the complete theory and give the full solution of the problem.

REMARKABLE FACT DEVELOPED IN TELE

GRAPHING TO AND FROM TRAINS.

The Phelps Induction Telegraph Com'pany states that it can equip a railroad with its system at an expense of $50 per mile or less, as against $300 per mile according to the previous estimates. The reason for this remarkable reduction in price, as explained by Mr. Phelps, is as follows:

"When we equipped the Harlem River Branch of the New Haven Railroad, about a year ago, we used the very best

A series of experiments showed finally that we could still hear signals, though so much of the current passed through a shunt that, according to the law of the division of currents, in transmitting from the station to the train only .0001 part of the current generated by the battery passed over the line, the other .9999 parts going through the shunt, and in the transmission from the car of the current induced on the line, only one seventhousandth part passed through the receiver. These experiments demonstrated conclusively that insulation is not a very important matter in the working of our system, and we propose now to use only an ordinary telegraph wire, supported by insulators upon the ties about three inches outside and just below the surface of the rail. The insulators will be about 25 ft. apart and of a special design. The coil upon the car will be outside the wheels, passing forward on one side of the car and back on the other, so that either side of the car may be turned to the wire. In this manner a railroad can be equipped with our system as cheaply as an extra wire can be put upon poles that are already standing, and if poles are to be erected, as in case of a new road, it can be equipped with our system at half the cost of a pole line."—Electrical World.

A motor, in which the power is derived from a supply of caustic soda, is being tested on a new street railway in Chicago, apparently with excellent results. It is claimed for this device that it is noiseless, economical of operation, reliable, and of course without smoke, steam or cinders, and capable of running up to ten miles an hour, and of being stopped, at ordinary street car speed, within a distance of five feet. The two motors which have been procured for this road were imported from Germany, where they are said to be successfully in operation on a suburban railway running from Berlin. No figures are at hand as to cost of operation in comparison with steam or horse power. If the device is all that is claimled it may work quite a revolution..

According to a recently introduced process for nickel-plating zinc, as described in a chemical journal, the zinc is cleaned by dilute hydrochloric acid, and thoroughly washed. This being done, it is then hung in the nickel bath for a short time, and, on being taken out, is rinsed and thoroughly scraped, by this means removing all that does not adhere firmly. This treatment is repeated until the zinc is found to be covered with a thin flim of nickel, which can afterward be made as thick as required. The suitable current strength is easily found. When the zinc is once thoroughly covered by this method, the current may be increased without any risk of peeling off.

It is due to the enterprise of an Italian astronomer that the work of a special series of observations has been undertaken, with a view of settling the point. whether any change is possible in the position of the earth's axis, no actual proof existing, as yet, that such a change has ever taken place. Two stations have been selected for this purpose, nearly in the same latitude, but a long distanceapart, as by this arrangement the same stars are near the zenith, and observations can be made upon the same stars, thus greatly promoting the accuracy of the work. The latitudes of the two observatories are to be determined with the utmost accuracy possible, with the aid of the best appliances of modern astronomy, The extraction of aniline colors from and, after an interval of fifty years, the cloths without injuring the fabric, espe- similar conditions. It is assumed that if, observations are to be repeated under cially those which it is desired to dye under such circumstances, any change in anew, has been the subject of much ex-latitude is observed, the question may be perimenting. In the case of cotton, Dr. Reimann mentions among other agents, chlorine in the form of gas or chloride of lime. The simplest method of accomplishing the object in this instance, he says, consists in digesting the fabrics for a sufficient length of time in alcohol of ninety per cent., which usually completes the decolorization in a short space of time. The same alcohol is available for several times in succession, and is afterward purified by rectification or redistillation, so as to involve but little loss. The work is best performed in a well-covered copper kettle, this being set in boiling water, and a little hydrochloric acid may be added if the articles treated are not of too delicate a nature, as by this addition the solubility of the aniline colors is increased.

A writer in one of the technical journals states that plaster of Paris casts, soaked in melted paraffine, may be readily cut or turned in a lathe; they may also be rendered very hard and tough by soaking them in warm glue size, until throroughly saturated, and allowing them to dry. This kind of plaster, mixed with equal parts of pumice stone, forms a fine mould for casting fusible metals, the same mixture being also useful for encasing articles to be soldered or brazed. Casts of the plaster of Paris may also be made to imitate fine bronzes by applying to them two or three coats of coverings of shellac varnish, and dusting on, carefully and uniformly, fine bronze powder, when the mastic varnish becomes sticky.

considered as settled.

Examinations made of the painted windows, so celebrated as works of artistic genius and skill, of the old cathedrals of England and Continental Europe, show that their superiority consists really in the inferiority of the glass, its richness in the poverty of its constituents, in the very perfection of its uneven thickness, and in the imperfections of its surface and its body, all covered, as they are, by the accumulating dust of ages, and honeycombed by the corroding effect of time. The glass makers of America and England now aim to reproduce the perfection of this old glass by reproducing its imperfections.

A remarkable explosion which occurred in Germany shows the force possessed by dust. A sack of flour, falling down stairs, opened and scattered the contents in a cloud through the lower room, where a burning gas flame set fire to the dust, causing an explosion which lifted a part of the roof of the mill and broke almost all of the windows. Remarking upon this, the Milling World thinks that there can be no doubt that the majority of dust explosions are like mine disasters, due to open lights, and as this danger can be practically avoided by the use of the incandescent electric lights, there really seems to be no valid reason why the system should not be introduced.

Road.

THE INDICATOR CARD.

where necessary, measuring it by a transmitting dynamometer. The indicator does, however, enable the obtaining, quite closely, of the actual useful power developed; the friction cards being subtracted from the cards taken when work is on.

Even at this date, it is not an unusual thing to read discussions in technical prints, in which it is maintained that the The point, however, which we wish to efficiency of the engine and its consump- emphasize is that the indicator (and its tion of steam can be determined from the diagram) can, taken by itself, tell nothing indicator card. The display of indicator of value as to the actual steam or fuel cards, and the importance attached to efficiency of the engine. To make any them in the catalogues of engine manu- other claims at the present time, as is so facturers further strengthens the belief of frequently done, may be fairly considerordinary steam users that in a finely-ed as a proof, either of self confessed shaped indicator diagram lies the whole ignorance or of willful deception. secret of the success of the engine and the test, of its economy.

Nothing could be farther removed from the truth. All that the indicator diagram shows is the pressure of steam at each point of the stroke, and accordingly it does give satisfactory evidence as to the distribution of steam, the correct setting of the valves, the indicated horse-power developed and the theoretical steam consumption.

As to the actual steam consumption per effective (commercial) horse-power developed, it says absolutely nothing. An engine might show a perfect card in a theoretical sense, that is to say, its steam distribution might be equal on both sides of the stroke, its steam or initial pressure line horizontal, its cut-off sharply defined, its expansion line follow exactly the hyperbolic or the adiabatic law, its compresssion start at a point, so that the steam reaches the initial pressure, exactly at the end of the return or the beginning of the new stroke, and despite all this the engine may be very wasteful indeed; while another card in which considerable variation from the perfect" card is present might be taken from an engine running with a far greater steam or fuel economy.

This is due to the fact that condensation of steam takes place in the cylinder during admission and expansion, that heat is abstracted at exhaust from the metal of the cylinder for the re-evaporation of the water of condensation, and that this action does not show itself in the indicator card.

In any engine test the indicator card is a necessary and important feature without which the amount of condensation of steam in cylinder, the horse-power absorbed for friction of engine, and other data, useful and necessary for the complete review and understanding of the action of the engine cannot be obtained. We would not therefore be understood or interpreted as underrating this useful ingenious measuring device, the important function of which we fully appreciate, but we would protest strongly against the too common practice of judging the economical value of an engine by the indicator card, and still more against the repetition of the doctrine that this is possible.

Of course the actual steam (and fuel) economy of an engine is of itself by no means the sole criterion of its economical value, this steam economy may be purchased at too great a cost, for it is the sum of the current interest, repairs and depreciation of plant, the current cost of attendance, plus the cost of fuel which constitutes the true test of the economy of the engine.-American Engineer.

The project of excavating a tunnel through Simplon for a new railway between Italy and Switzerland is near to its realization. The Italian government has promised its cooperation, and the works will be begun next year. The proposed railway line will be 32.6 miles long, of which 7.5 miles will pass through the The only direct way to determine the tunnel; it will cost $13,000,000, and its actual steam consumption is to measure completion will take ten years, more than all the water evaporated into dry steam six years being required for excavation of in the boiler. The actual useful horse- the tunnel. On the Switzerland side the power developed is best obtained by ab- tunnel will be 2,260 feet, and on the Italsorbing the power of a friction brake, orian, 2,036 feet above the sea level.