MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1721, 26 August 1879, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

In the celebrated Billingsgate Fish Market in London, the electric light proved a complete failare, for the unexpected reason that it was too good. Business at Billingsgate begins at three o’clock in the morning, most of the bargains being struck by gaslight. When the searching electric candle was turned on, its brilliant whiteness literally showed the fish in such a new light that the trade was demoralised outright. Soles that would have fetched a shilling a pair by gaslight looked dear at sixpence, while turbot fresh from the sea looked a week old. The result was a general outcry. The copious and ornate dialect of the locality was enriched by a number of notable additions during the few days of the new light; and for fear of a revolt among the “ bummarees,” as the fish salesmen are called, the corporation was obliged to restore the familiar yellow gas lights. At a meeting of the Naval Institute in Washington, May 29th, Professor Newcomb stated that he has received letters from Otto Struve, Director of the Pulkowa Observatory, announcing that the Russian Government has voted 250,000 rubles for the construction of the largest telescope that can be advantageously made, including the building in which to mount it. The object glass is intended to be between thirty inches and three feet in diameter, if the glass makers find it practicable to cast a disk of this size of the necessary evenness and purity. It has not yet been decided who shall undertake the moat difficult part of the work, the grinding of the glass; and before deciding it Struve intends to visit_ this country in order to examine the Washington and other great telescopes made by Alvan Clark and Sons, He will probably arrive in America for this purpose some time during the summer. Should his examination prove satisfactory he will be ready to open negociations with the Clarks for the work if he is sure it will be done enough better to warrant the risk of sending the glass twice across the Atlantic.

One of our foreign exchanges states that a great bee master, the Rev. M. Sauppe, in Luckendorf, has made the following calculation, intended to prove the eminent agricultural and economical importance of the rearing of bees. Of each of the 17,000 hives to be met with in Saxony 10,000 bees fly out per diem—equal to 170 millions—each bee four times, equal to 680 millions, or, in 100 days, equal to 680,000 millions. Each bee, before flying homeward, visits .50 flowers therefore the whole assemblage has visited .'3,400,000 millions of flowers. If out of the ten only one flower has become fertilised, :340,000 millions tf fertilised would be the ,result. Supposing the reward for the fertilisation of 5000 flowers to be one German ipfennig, the united bees of .Saxony have obtained per annum a sum of G 8 million Siigs, equal to 680,000 marks (170,000 rs). Each hive represents in this way a value flowers of ten dollars.

Professor Huxley, in proposing the toast of “The Press,” at the recent anniversary of ■the ‘Printers’ Pension Corporation, said : ■“ At the risk of being thought a Balaam, ho would .venture to point to another little ■cloud ..which it seemed to him, though no bigger than a man’s hand at present, might be espied in the horizon. There were .already signs that as writing had superceded speaking, and printing has superseded writing, so, perhaps, before many generations were aver, speaking would resume sonoethiDg of its ancient sway. Such instruments os tthe microphone and the telephone were not now more imperfect than the printing press of 400 years ago was, compared with the machines of the present day ; and should these instruments undergo, ns it was not nnreajKmable to suppose they would, as great a development, it was not impossible that the Englishman of the future, instead of dividing his attention in the morning between his “Times” and his bacon, might be able to give his entire attention to his bacon by having the speeches made on the previous night in the House of Coipmons, and the general intelligence of the da y, ground off by a small barrel organ on the breakfast table ; the very tones of Royal and illustrious personages might be heard by the multitude j poets, who, by the wy, yrm nefariously bad readers of their

own poetry, might be heard reciting their own verses ; and on such occasions as that which had brought this company together, they, might uncork the bottled speeches of the moat distinguished orators of the day, should those great men not have time to attend.” . , It was, we believe, an American who threatened to bottle up the Gulf Stream, and freeze out the Britishers. Though this hasn’t happened yet, some wonderful things have lately been achieved beyond the Atlantic—the last being (according to an American exchange) the invention by the famous Mr Edison, of an electric bug capable of dragging a wire through all the pipes in New York ! More important, howover, for agriculturists in the announcement that Signora Rotura, a botanist of South American fame, has discovered a vegetable narcotic, the injection of which suspends indefinitely the vital powers of animals, while they may be restored to life by introducing through a puncture in the skin another vegetable distillation. In favourable temperature, we are told, the animals’ trance may be prolonged several months. With refrigerating processes approaching perfection, our transatlantic cousins would appear to be aiming at a complete freezing-out of the British stock-feeder.

Some very beautiful alloys, applicable as substitutes for gold and silver in the manufacture of jewellery' and similar purposes, have been produced by Messrs. Meiffren and Co., of Marseilles. To make an alloy having the appearance and color of gold, they place in a crucible copper as pure as possible, platinum, and tungstic acid in the proportions below stated, and when the metals are completely melted, they stir and granulate them by running them into water containing 500 grammes of slaked lime and 600 grammes of carbonate of potash for every cubic meter of water. This mixture, dissolved in water, has the property of rendering the alloy still purer. They then collect the granulated metal, dry it, and after having remelted in a crucible, they add a certain quantity of fine gold in the proportion hereafter specified. An alloy is thus produced which, when run into ingots, presents the appearance of red gold of the standard 750 TOGO, and to which may be applied the name of “ aphthite,” or unalterable. They can change the color of the alloy by varying the proportions of the different metals. As flux they use boric acid, nitrate of soda, and chloride of sodium previously melted together in equal proportions. The proportion of flux to be employed is 25 grammes per kilogramme of the alloy. The proportions they employ, by preference, for producing an alloy of red gold color are : —Copper, 800 grammes ; platinum, 25; tungstic acid, 10 ; and gold, 170 grammes. The alloy used in imitation of silver consists of iron, 6’5 parts; nickel, 23 parts ;'tungsten, 4 parts ; aluminum, 5 parts; and copper, 5 parts. The irong and tungsten are melted together, and then granulated, as in the case of the previous alloy, except that in this instance the water into which the mixture is run contains one kilogramme of slaked lime and one kilogramme of carbonate of potash per cubic meter. The nickel, copper, and aluminum are also melted together and granulated by running into water containing the same proportion of lime and potash. Care should he taken during the melting to cover the metals contained in the two crucibles with a flax composed of one part of boric acid to one part of nitrate of potash or niter. In the crucible containing the aluminum and copper they place a Tump of sodium of about two grammes in weight when treating five kilogrammes of the three metals (nickel, copper, and aluminum) together to prevent oxidation of the copper. Before granulating the metal in each crucible it should be well stirred with a fire-clay stirrer. The granulated metals are dried, as in the former case, then melted together in the same crucible in the proportions above indicated, and well stirred, after which the alloy is run into ingots. The alloy thus obtained, to which may be given the name of “ sideraphthite ” (or unchangeable iron) presents the same white appearance as platinum or silver, and is not more expensive than German silver. These improved metallic alloys are capable of resisting the action of sulphurated hydrogen, are unattached by vegetable acids, and but slightly attacked by mineral acids ; they are also perfectly ductile and malleable.— “London Mining Journal.” The Arctic programme for the nerthem summer of the present year is as full as usual. Captain Markham started in April for a yachting voyage, with the intention oi reaching, if possible, Franz Josef Land, to see what prospects of success there are _ for another polar expedition in that direction. He will cruise about between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla until be can find an opening in the ice. Several expeditions will start in search of the missing steamer Vega, for the safety of which fears are entertained. One of them will be in a vessel specially built in Sweden for the purpose. Mr Gordon Bennett’s steamer Jeanette will start from San Francisco for Behring’s Straits, and will attempt to rescue the Vega or its crew before proceeding further north. Mr Bennett sends another vessel to Spitzbergen, and as much farther as it can go. The Danish Government has made arrangements for the exploration of all the fiords in Greenland from Holsteinborg to Disco. A bill has been introduced in the United States Congress authorising the President to establish a temporary colony at some point north of the 81st degree of latitude, on or near the shore of Lady Franklin Bay, for the purpose of scientific observation and exploration, as well as to aid whale fishing in the neighborhood, thus carrying out Captain Howgate’s plans. It is surely a pity that there should be so much waste of energy in a region so barren.