Show SCIENCES PROGRESS A New Current Conductor foi Electric Railways ART SCIENCE AND MECHANICS All Around the Mouse The Great Artesian Well DistrictBaking With a Gasoline Stove A now departure in current conductors for electric railway purposes has been taken by tho Daft company who are now operating trains on a section of the Ninth Avenue Elevated Ele-vated road in New York city The now kind of Conductor is shown in the accompanying ci eproduced from The Electric World n I IIII 41II II s l EIXCTEIC CU11KEVT COVDUCTOR NEW YOHK ELEVATED ROAD The conductor which issupported by heavy insulated cast iron brackets runs aion outside out-side the outer guard rail of each track lt is of round iron threo inches in diameter and is surmounted by and in perfect electrical contact with a bar of phosphor bronze threeeighths of an inch thick by ono inch i wide This bar takes all the wear from tho contact con-tact apparatus and will retain a polished surface under all circumstances The supporting sup-porting bracket is made in two parts as may bo seen in tho illustration and has a grip sufficient suf-ficient to prevent all possibility of displacement displace-ment of tho conductor The conductor is elevated el-evated a considerable distance from the ties and the supporting brackets are well insulated insulat-ed so that the chances of loss of electric energy en-ergy through leakage are reduced to a minimum mini-mum The difference in cost of iron and copper admits of the greatly increased size of conductor giving the same conductivity at much less expense BeOlHnsr of Old Coal Mines An ingenious artifice that has lately been successfully in practice at Shenandoah by the Reading company at the Kohinoor colliery for refilling the excavations from which coal has been taken out is worthy of mention since it is desirable that it should be imitated elsewhere throughout the coal regions re-gions where similar conditions prevail The method is both simple and effective and prevents pre-vents tho caving in of the earth above and the consequent loss of valuable property which has not been infrequent in the mining towns of the anthracite region Besides the valuable pillars of pure coal which for many years it was customary to leave in the mines to prevent falling in of the roof can now betaken be-taken out without fear Already more than two acres beneath the city of Shenandoah from which tho coal had been mined have been again solidly refilled with tho coal dirt which used to be piled mountains high around the town Tho Great Artesian Well District The James River valley Dakota is claimed to bo the greatest artesian well district known A comparison with other districts makes it appear ap-pear that for pressure and area over which they are found this valley far surpasses them all There are some fine wells in France but they are found only in favored localities Some of tho wells in Franco are of large bore but in none docs the pressure equal any ono of fifty wells in the James valley val-ley says Scientific American Western California Cali-fornia from San Diego to near tho northern boundary of the state is proving itself to boa bo-a fine artesian district but strong pressure is found only in limited areas Nearly every city and many of tho small villages from Yankton to Jamestown have wells and tho majority of these have a very heavy pressure pres-sure The possibilities of the wells of this valley seem to be beyond estimation With millions of gallons flowing daily there has been no diminution of tho supply The Now Commissioner of Patents ilr Charles E Mitchell the new commissioner commis-sioner of patents is about S3 years of ago and a native of Bristol Conn He is a graduate grad-uate of Brown university He has occupied several important public positions among them that of state senator but for the most part his energies havo been devoted to tho practice of patent law Ostrich Farming In California With anew to experiments in ostrich farming farm-ing in California in 1832 some birds were imported from Cape Town and in 1SSGS7 further shipments were forwarded from Natal Tho last was made by Mr Cawston who landed fortytwo birds out of fiftytwo They were then taken to Mr Cawstons ostrich os-trich farm in Los Angeles Cat where our illustration was taken Mr Cawston has been successful in raising a large number of young birdsthose in the illustration being one and two weeks old Tho climate and tho countryas had been expectedappear to bo admirablysuited to the culture these birds The experiment also appears to be fairly profitable pro-fitable as from ono small bird and two hens he producedprincipally by means of incubation incu-bation eighteen chicks in ono season 1 i = < = c = osrnicn cnICKS Before they were ton weeks old Uo sold them for S40 some going to Arizona where a farm is being established and others being purchased for exhibition purposes In addition addi-tion to this tho feathers will realize 230 making total result of about GSO from throo birds Notes and News A movement is on foot for tho founding of a tiitilf technical FChooL Large textile man ufaituixTh are the projectcrsof the scheme ri n117 journal started at Fremont 0 Jourual of Oil and Gas pro iii ior i j ll urw fill I I the recognized authority on gas n j I1LLVI I > |