MISCELLANEOUS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1552, 8 February 1879, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

The committee appointed by the Italian Parliament to inquire into the debts of the municipality of Florence, which, it will be remembered, have culminated in the bankruptcy of that city, has completed its report. The only point which has yet fully transpired is that the committee confirms the statement that the municipality expended 72.000. lire (about £2,880,000) in cash upon Government buildings, to meet which they had to borrow the nominal sum of 101.000. lire (£1,160,000), or in other words, to allow a discount of about £1,280,000 to the financiers who provided the funds, or 44 \ per cent. A new use for old rails is being put to practical test at the workshops of the Prince Edward’s Island Railway Company. The plan of the bridge is a lattice girder, 31ft. span. The top chord is formed of three rails laid parallel; the bottom chord is formed in like manner, the lower rails being placed in an invert- d position. The diagonal bracing is formed of short pieces of rails, bent at the upper and lower ends, and twisted with a half turn in the middle, so as to cause the flanges to come in conjunction with the flanges of the top and bottom chords. The flanges are then riveted together with gin. rivets. At each place where the braces and counters meet the chord a £ in. iron plate is introduced, which binds the three rails of tho chord together. The rails are 40ib iron of the Sandberg pattern.

Tho problem of milling is to separate in as simple and cheap a manner as possible the interior of the grain from the outer rind, the beard, and the germ; to thoroughly grind tho cells of which the grain is composed, and by setting free the glair substances and starch grains from the outer integument in which they are inclosed, to facilitate a quicker and more intimate contact of the nourishing qualities contained in the wheat ■with the human stomach. The AustroHungarian high milling, with its nicely exact elimination of even the smallest modicum of bran, and its fine and careful grinding, of all other (methods approximates the nearest to this ideal, and tho bread made of flour so treated is consequently the most nourishing and the easiest of digestion of any bread in the world. According to this theory, if he would answer the practical question, “ How much pure flour can be got out of the grain ?” the above named experiment will enable us to do it in the following figures : —Pure flour—wheat, 78 to 82 per cent; rye, 75 to 80 per cent. Waste and fodder—wheat, 18 to 82 per cent; ryo, 20 to 25 per cent.

Some years ago a Doctor Eobinson of this city obtained a patent through the agency of the “ Scientific American” for felling trees by electricity. Subsequently a description of the invention was published in this paper, soon after which the newspapers in this country and Europe teemed with the account of a gentleman in India having contrived an apparatus for felling trees in the same manner. Since tuese several years have elapsed we have heard nothing of the gentleman from India till a few days ago our papers have taken up the subject anew, and annexed is the account they give of the inventor’s progress in developing his discovery. The electric fluid in the form of lightning oftentimes proves itself a very efficient wood cutter, and it has occurred to some ingenious gentleman in India that artificial electricity may be so applied and controlled as to cut down trees a good deal faster than the clumsy axe or that American notion the chain saw. The two ends of the copper wires of a galvanic battery are connected with platinum wire, which of course instantly becomes red hot, and while in that state it is gently see-sawed across the trunk of the trees to be felled. When arrangements were made for the experiment, it turned out that the thickness of the thickest platinum wire that could be got was only that of crochet cotton. It was at once seen that such a wire would be consumed before the tree was half severed from its trunk. However, the attempt was made. The burning wire performed its task very well as long as it lasted, but, as anticipated, the wire continually broke, and at length there was no wire left. There can be little doubt that, with a stronger battery and a thicker wire, the experiment would have been entirely successful. As it was, the tree was sawn one-fifth through.

Ur Gaillard Thomas, of New York, finds that injection of milk into a vein will revive patients likely to die after an operation, or in collapse from cholera, and other critical conditions. The quantity injected may be as much as eight ounces; but it must bo milk which on the instant has been drawn I f roin the cow. Blood is preferable to milk for transfusion, but fails of success should a touch of air or a particle of lymph pass in during the operat on. Hence Ur Thomas remarkslf milk answers not as good, but nearly as good a purpose as blood under these circumstances, its use will create a new ora in this most interesting department of medicineand he predicts for “ intravenous lacteal injection, a brilliant and useful future.”—“ Chambers’ Journal.”

Among tho scientific discoveries introduced to the public at tho Paris Exhibition of 1878, there are none more interesting and more worthy of attention than the invention of M. Mouchot, a professor at the “lycee”of Tours. M. Mouchot lias been experimenting with the sun, and the results of his experiments are eminently satisfactory. He has, in short, established the utility of the heat of the great luminary for practical purposes as a domestic and scientific agent. So much M. Mouchot has accomplished by the construction of a simple and ingenious apparatus for attracting the sun’s rays. This apparatus is nothing more than an inverted skylight with bright internal partitions, and an opening directed towards tho sun. The rays, attracted to the surface, concentrate at the centre, to the spot where the lamp is placed in an ordinary skylight, and a temperature is produced sufficient —according to tho utensils employed—to cook a mutton chop or a rib of beef. With the use of a vase of water, a sort of boiler has been improvised, and M. Mouchot has worked a small machine by steam generated by the sun. ' These experiments have attracted the attention of the scientific world. Physicians and engineers have remarked the fruitful source of application and economy in M, Mouchot’s discovery. A scientific mis sion was set on foot in Algeria in 1877, and M, Mouchot profited by the splendid advantages offered by the French colony for investigations of this character. The results of this mission in Algeria were magnificent, and with a perfected apparatus M. Mouchot baked bread and meats, and boiled potatoes and eggs, with a speed that the best of cooks and the brightest of fires could not attain. He distilled the juice of tigs—from which an alcoholic drink is made in Algeria —in a very short time, and the heat of the sun, by the vaporisa'ion of water, performed the part of a motive power with marked success. The results of these experiments have lately been communicated to the French Academy of Science, and to encourage tho practical and economical applications of the sun’s seat, the Conseil General of Algeria has voted 5000 francs for the construction of the proper apparatus. This apparatus has been sent to the Exhition. It does not require a very lively imagination to foresee the benefits to which these researches may lead, not io much in oar own temperate clime perhaps, as in those tropical regions where the sun pours down a torrent of heat, which, till now, nature alone has employed in the production of exuberant vegetation. —Sydney “Town and Country.”