Show SCIENCES PROGRESS Things Said and Done in the Progressive World LOS ANGELES PALMS AND WELLS An Interesting Study for the Historically Inclined Tourist and Scientist Botanist and Antiquarian The accompanying engraving was orig Snally from n photograph taken by a corre ipondentof Scientific American and shows he twin palms of Los Angeles Cal ar III < i w f > l r < < 1 < 4 < f 1 11 z = TWIN PALMS AND OLD WELL OF LOS ANGELES About those trees the correspondent re iCerre1 to says They UfO of the fan palm spa ics and aro gigantic in size being probably the largest in the United States It is supposed they were planted by some Df the mission fathers who founded the old Spanish missions on the Pacific coast They may bu classed among tho wonders of sunny California They are about ninetyfive feat in height and seven feet in diameter Their nge is variously estimated but it is safe to nay that they are over one hundred years old During this period they have witnessed the growth of Los Angeles from a Spanish pueblo of adobe huts to the metropolis of Southern California Near these palms thero still may bo seen a well of great antiquity whoso waters have refreshed perhaps many of tho ancient Aztecs Az-tecs the children of the sun rclliiij Trees by Electricity The London Times reports that electric pops r has been adopted in the Galician for iste Usually in such machines tho trunk is savru but in thiscaso it is drilled with a series at holes close together When the wood is of a soft nature tho drill has sweeping motion and cuts into the trunk by means of cutting get on its sides The drill is actuated by an electric motor mounted on n carriage which is comparatively light and can be i brought up close to the tree and fastened to it The motor is capable of turning around t I its vertical axis and the drill is geared to it in such a manner that it can turn through an arc of a circle and make a sweeping cut into tho trunk Tho first cut made the drill is i advanced a low inches and another section of the wood is removed in tho same way until tho trunk is half savored It is then clamped to keep the < ut rom closing and the operation continued until it would bo unsafe to go on The remainder re-mainder is finished by a hand saw or an ax Tho current is conveyed to the motor by insu Jated wires brought through the forest from a generator placed at sonic convenient site which may be at a distance from the scene of operations The generator may be driven by steam or water power and does not need to i > 3 transported from place to place A nemarkablo Cavern in Virginia Orders were given to Capt Jewell in the employ of the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad to cut down tho face of a rocky cliff that juts out over the Greenbrier river at a point five miles cast of Alderson and a mile and a half west of Fort Spring lu the discharge of this duty a few months ago ho found that after cutting through an extremely compact stratum of black limestone serving as an exterior ex-terior shell the rock that remained was in a singularly broken condition On clearing the fragments away there was suddenly exposed to view the hitherto hidden gateway of a cave of largo dimensions which has been appropriately ap-propriately named for its discoverer The Jewell Cavern The mouth of the cave is 10 feet wide and 30 feat high The vestibule is i 59 feet deep and what might bo called the throat of the ° avaa narrow and irregular apertaro is to the left Cb you go in It bears the musical name of Magnolia Gate Just at this point in a stratum of oolitic limestone swan eical J Jit specimens of pentrcautes crinoids and her fos its have basis found serving to dot do-t runno the formation as subcarbouiferous and referable totheso called Umbral series of tho Virginia survey This series here in cud what are known as the Greenbrier limestones and shales the latter being soft and readily decomposed while the former ary remarkably in character from kinds almost al-most as hard as granite down to the oolitic ansty already mentioned r v s THE JEWKLL CAVERX By barometrical measurement the entrance to Jewells cavern is 1000 feet above tho level I of the tea and It is about CO feet above the level of tho adjacent river The crest of tho bill is between WJ and 400 feet high The surrounding country is broken into hills and hollows Thanks aro duo to Scientific American Amer-ican for the above illustration and description descrip-tion of this natural attraction in West Virginia Vir-ginia Notes and Comments Among tho interesting and successful recent re-cent inventions is a rolling mill producing sheet metal direct from the molten state instead in-stead of rolling it from a billot or bar A machine of this character has bees at work for several mouths at tho con factory in May wood noar Chicago I The Railroad Gazette calls attention io a double locomotive for the Indian state railways rail-ways which is a novel departure coca the common practico Tho design is really a par jcanent double header that in it is intended lor uo when the conditions are such as to rc choirs the use of two locomotives of the ordinary ordi-nary type continually in tandem This arrangement ar-rangement removes the necessity for two tenders and renders easier tbn transmission I of signals from nno cab to another I |