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Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3456, 22 January 1880, Page 2

Sound travels at the rate of 1142 feet per second in the air, 4960 in the water, 11,000 in cast iron, 17,000 in steel, 18,000 in glass, and from 4636 to 17,000 in wood. Mercury freezes at 38 degrees Fahrenheit and becomes a solid mass, malleable under the hammer. The greatest height at which visible clouds ever exist does not exceed ten mile<'. Air is about 816 tinjeg lighter than common water. The pressure of thq^. atmosphere upon every square foot of thffj|L earth amounts to 4160 pounds. An ordi-^^ nary-sized man, supposing his surface to be fourteen square feet,' sustains the enormous pressure of 30,340 pounds. Heat rarities air to such an extent that it can be made to occupy 5500 times the space it did before. The violence of the expansion of water when freezing is sufficient to cleave a globe of copper of such thickness as to require a force of 28,000 pounds to produce like effect. During Ihe con version of ice into water, 150 degrees of heat are absorbed. Water, when converted into steam, increases in bulk 18,000 times. One hundred pounds of Dead Sea water contains 46 pounds of salt. The mean actual depth of rain that falls at the equator is 96 inches. Assum* ing the temperature at the interior of the earth to increase uniformly at the rate of ono degree for every 45 feet, at the depth of 60 miles the degree of heat would be sufficient to fuse all known substances. The explosive force of closely confined gunpowder is six and a half tons to the square inch. The greatest artificial cold ever produced is 91 degrees Fahrenheit. Water obstructs one-half of the perpendicular rays of the. sun in 17 feet and three-fourths in 34 feet, and less (ban onethousandth part reaches the depth of 200 feet; heaoo the bottom of deep water, v in toUi darkness.—Chamberi' Joaraal, -