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Show ;j KOTESON "SCIENCE. CUMtKT NOTES OF DISCOVERY AND INVENTION. ., Klght lHmaifl Monoliths They Art to Hm I'.. 4 as C'olamns In the Cathedral of Ht. John the Dlrlae Hala Kmetn In Maw York. LAROIIT RVKR Ql' A R Rl r. l. Eight ut ttie Isrgest blocks of stone ever qusrrled In this country are lyliMt t the work of the Uodwell Uranlte company at Vlnal, Maine, awaiting the1 completion of a great latii wblcj La to turn and polish them. They are to b uacd aa columns fur the Cathedral of Rt. John the Divine, New York city. The weight of the atoms In the roiinh Is from 120 to 130 tons each. They aro from fifty-seven to sixty feet In length and about sev. n feet In diameter. di-ameter. Whi n ready for shipment each atone will be a round column six feet In diameter and fl'ty-slx feet In length and will weigh more than sixty tun. The contract price for the eight atones Is :'20,000, something more than IHB.. 000 for each column. As there was no lathe In existence large enough to turn the columns. John Pierce, the conti actor. Is h.ivlng one built at a coat of about l&o.ooo. The ahafts of granite are so long thst they will not hold their own weight when suspended from I ho ends to be turned down to prorer shape. To ob-rlate ob-rlate till difficulty a central support will be put In the lathe, which will turn with I ho shaft, and after the atone Is made Into a cylinder the machinery ma-chinery will be moved abend to take off the uncut section. In I860, wben the columns In front of the treasury building at Washington Washing-ton wora cut on I)lx Island, Maine, atone workers said they were the limit lim-it of alio in granite work. From that date until the early '80a the treasury columns, which wero twenty-seven feet In length, were the greatest feat of the stonecutter. Then the monu-nent to Gen. Wool, which Is erectod at Weat Point, was cut at Vlnnl Haven, aud held tha record until the architect of the Cathedral of Ht. John tho Dlvlno came forward with a plan ror eight columns, each of which was to be fifty. lg fcot long. TO KILL MOKiJI'lTOK. Rome time ago we Illustrated In detail de-tail the experiments which aro being carried out In the Unman Campagna,. Italy, for the reduction of the mosquito mos-quito plasuo. It has been established beyond doubt that theso Insects are H the cause of the dissemination of nia- Hj larlal microbes, and further light has H been thrown upon the subject by MoJ. S Ronald Rom.. R. a. M. C, who re- jfl turned to Knglnnd from West Africa R on September 2. aftor having con- jf ducted extensive Inveatlgatlona Into i' the origin and spread of malarial fever. J At Freetown the Investigators em- it " ployed workmen to destroy mosquito larvae and within thirty-four days they had cleared more than 2.000 houses, with the result that the number num-ber of mosquitoes has been largely reduced, and it was hoped that there would ba a corresponding abatement In cases of malaria. This week we Illustrate and experiment which has !been made at Staten Island by Dr. Alva Al-va h Doty, health officer of the port ot , lew York. His method was to do-stroy do-stroy the mosquitoes with petroleum, and be attacked Muller'a pond, which bas for years been a breeding place, to tha discomfort of the Inhabitants of Concord, where malaria has been prevalent. Doctor Doty proposed to distribute oil ovor the wutor, and for that purpose he contrived a woodsn float eight feet long and four feet broad. Within this. In a msnner somewhat some-what resembling a harp, were placed pipes perforated with small bolea six Inches apart. A hose, connected with a tank ailed with crude petroleum, and ! a pump were then attached to the pipes, and petroleum was driven down through the water with considerable consid-erable force. There la thus formed upon the surface an oily scum which FLOAT FOR DISTRIBUTING OIL. I J destroy the floating larvae of tha ! , moaqulto. During the process ot dls- i trlbutlon the float Is pulled backwards i and forwards over the ponds so that . .' every Inch ot the surface Is treated f : with petroleum. The ground around 1 i the pond has been cleared of rank veg- i station, and the bank-; have also been i saturated with oil. Doctor Doty will . now watch the health reporta of his t 4 district for some Indication that his 1' experiment has been successful. '; Pennsylvania CJrlt. minks or WAX. In soveral parts ot tho world a resl- I nous substance cullud osoceritn, and J bearing considerable resemblance to i beeswax, Is found, usually In conneo- tlou with rock salt and coal. There I are deposits In Austria, Russia, Rou- i mania, Egypt, Algeria, Canada and ( alsxlco, but, says our consul at Trieste, I Mr. Hossfeld, ozocerite ha, (0 fur, not been discovered In sufficient quantities i ' to pay for mining anywhere except la the district of Boryalav, la Austrian (lallcla, and on an Islsnd'on the went coast or the Caspian Ha': In mining this mineral wax. shafts are sjink iin, til a bed. or "nest," of omcerlte Is "truck. Then connecting galleries are driven. There Is considerable danger, and. many Uvea have been lost (n .con-sequence .con-sequence of the sudden forcing up of the soft wax 1Mo the shafts by tke enormous pressure to which it Is subjected. sub-jected. It la- used largely for manufacturing manu-facturing ccrealn, which la employed, together with beeswax, for making wax candles, as well aa In the manufacture manu-facture of phonographic cylinders, and for many similar purposes. n,iir mii- i f ancr. The Invention shown below has been designed for cleaning combs of hair, dandruff and other matter which clog up the teeth after tho comb la In use a short time, the machine being especially es-pecially uaeful In barber shops and halrdresslng parlors, where the combs are In constant use and It Is necessary to have them always clean. The arrangement ar-rangement conslHta of a box with a removablo top In which Is mounted a rotary brush of wire or stilt bristles with a crank at one end by which It Is revolved. In the bottom of the box Is a row of curved fingers, which serve to remove from tho bristles whatever the latter dislodge from the comb, It being a small task to remove tne mat. tor irom tho bottom of the box at In- TO REMOVE HAITI FROM COMU. tervala aa It accumulates. To operate tho cleaner the comb Is placed on the slanting end of the box underneath the thumb rent, being adjusted In relation re-lation to the brush, when a few turns of the latter will force the bristles be. tween the teeth and dislodge the hairs, etc. ( I lllllt S rAC TH Alllll'T HOUND, ' During the firing of iniuute-guua by the English licet at oplthcad, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's funeral, the sounds were heard at surprising distances Inland, and the English scientific sci-entific Journals have since published ; many Interesting facta about those phenomena. It seems to be established that not only the direction of the wind, but Its relative velocity at different elevatlona from the ground, affected the direction ot the sound-waves. In some cases, contrary winds refractod the sound over the heads of observers between 10 and 45 miles from the ships, so that they did not hear the guns, but the same wavea were afterward after-ward brought to the ground by favorable favor-able upper currents, rendering the sounds audible at 60 miles, and even aa far as 140 ml lea, while at 84 miles they wore ao loud that laborers In the fields put down their spades and listened lis-tened to them. IS TUKRB A ri.ANRT ItRTOND NltP-TI'NKf NltP-TI'NKf This question was revived before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, lately by Prof. George Forbea, who called attention atten-tion to the fact that there are seven comets whose apbolion points, according accord-ing to their calculated orbita, correspond corre-spond with the position of a planet revolving re-volving around the sun at a distance 100 times greater than that of the earth, and having a period of about 1,000 years. He auggasted that the disturbing dis-turbing attraction of this supposed planet had altered the elements of the orbit of the great comet seen in 12114 and 1558 so that It did not come back when expected In 1848. Thla comet, he thought, might be Identified with tha third comet of 1844 or the second comet of 1843, its return having been hastened by the pertubatlon ot tke planet CIRNTIFIO KOTK. Making Light frura Hmoka. A Belgian engineer, Toblunsky, has Invented an apparatus for producing light from smoke. It appears that the origin of the smoke is a matter ot Indifference. In-difference. It, Is simply forced Into a receiver, where It Is saturated with hy-drocarburct, hy-drocarburct, and can then be burned, giving a brilliant illumination. Uarmnna and KuglUh In Antarctic. lly mutual agreement, the two principal prin-cipal exploring expeditions which ar to start for the Antarctic this year, on under the auspices ot the British government gov-ernment and tho other under those of the German government, will respectively respec-tively confine their attention to opposite oppo-site halves of the unexplored regions. The Germans will study the side facing fac-ing the Atlantic aud the Indian ocean and the English the side lying south of Australia and the Pacific. Danger la Insulating Ulovae. According to the results of experiments experi-ments recently reported to the International Inter-national Society of Electricians, India-rubber India-rubber gloves and sandals, and glove made of glass pearls Interwoven with cotton tissue, ought nut to be trusted to afford security to workers about electrlo apparatus. They should be depended de-pended upon, not for touching directly direct-ly conductors of high tension, but only for touching the already Insulated attachments at-tachments of such conductors as, for example, the non-metallic handles of Interrupters. The danger Is especially great when the gloves are moist. |