A MAGIC CHEMICAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7959, 9 February 1906, Page 7

A MAGIC CHEMICAL.

The Hungarian -chemist, Brunn, ■claims to have discovered a liquid ■chemical compound which readers certain kinds of matter proof against the effects of time. He asserts that it doubles tho density of nearly every kind of atone, and renders it waterproof. It imparts to all metal qualities which de?y oxygen and rust. It is also a germicide of hitherto unequalled powers. The professor says that, while travelling in Greece some twenty-five years ago, be noticed that the mortar in stones of xuins which were known to be over 2,000 years old was as hard, tenacious as if they had- been made only a year. He secured a piece of the motar, and has been working on it ever since until now, when, he says, he has discovered the secret. The compound is a yellow liquid, which the professor has christened He desoribed the following experiment:—-A piece of ordinary and easily breakable elacr, after immersion in zorene, defied the full blow of a hammer. There was the same effeats on ordinary bricks and a block of red jarrab wood. All three were then immersed in water for a long time. When taken out •and weighed with delicate scales the presence of n single particle of added moisture could not be detected. Two pieces of steel submitted to an ammonia test equal to rive years 1 exposure to the air, emerged from the bath as tbey entered it. An ordinary table knife which had lain open for five months did not show the slightest stain. Professor Brunn asserts that be will be able to make roads dust, germ and waterproof, thus giving or commercial value to 'hundreds of millions of cons of slag which is now useless in the mining and smelting districts. His discovery will, at the very least, he says, doable the life of metals exposed to the air, such as in bridges, railroads, vessels and tanks.