Part 6

From an interesting article on the wool trade of the Pacific coast, published in a recent number of the San Francisco _Journal of Commerce_, we learn that the number of sheep in the world is now estimated at from four hundred and eighty-four to six hundred millions, of which the United States has about 36,000,000, and Great Britain the same number. From 1801 to 1875 the wool clip of Great Britain and Ireland increased from 94,000,000 to 325,000,000 pounds. That of France has increased almost as rapidly, though the wool is finer, as a rule, and hence the superiority of French cloths. Australia produces nearly as much wool as the parent country--Great Britain. The United States product increased from very little at the beginning of the century to about 200,000,000 pounds at the present time. Of this California has produced about one fourth, and the Pacific coast as a whole almost one third. If the ratio of growth shown in the past prevails in the future, the day is not far distant when the Pacific coast will produce at least one half the wool produced in the United States, as not only California and Oregon, but also Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and New Mexico are well adapted to its production. The wool clip of Australia is about 284,000,000 pounds; that of Buenos Ayres and the river Plata, 222,500,000 pounds; other countries not previously given, 463,000,000 pounds. The total clip of the world last year was about 1,497,500,000 pounds, worth $150,000,000. This when scoured would yield about 852,000,000 pounds of clean wool.

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=Street Main Joints.=

At the annual meeting of the New England Association of Gas Engineers, Mr. Thomas, of Williamsburg, made the following remarks on this subject: "In my early experience with the Williamsburg Gaslight Company, with which I became connected in the year 1854, I found pretty nearly all the street mains that were laid were connected with cement joints. While there is no doubt in my own mind that a joint can be made perfectly tight with cement, I much prefer the lead joint. Another thing to be taken into consideration to keep tight joints is that the mains should be laid a sufficient depth under the surface to protect them from the action of severe frosts. A great many of the mains were not more than 18 inches or 2 feet below the surface of the streets, and at this depth in our climate it is a matter of impossibility to keep joints tight, as the action of the frost in winter will displace the mains and cause the joints to leak. From the bad manner in which our mains were laid, and the cement joints leaking so much, we could not afford to turn gas on during the day. Had we done so we should not have had any to supply the city at night, and we were thus compelled to shut off the gas just as soon as there was any apology for daylight, and keep it shut off as late as possible in the evening.

"With the most careful working in this manner, for a period of nine or twelve months, our losses from leakage amounted to about 52 to 55 per cent of the gas manufactured. A great part of this loss was caused by the cement joints leaking, and also a part due to the fact that the mains were not at sufficient depth under the surface to protect them from the action of the frost. As soon as we possibly could I went over the whole of our mains (there was about 17 miles in all), stripping them, cutting out the cement, and rejointing them with lead. In one season we got the loss from leakage down to 20 per cent, and this with the gas turned on during the 24 hours of the day.

"One great objection to cement joints is the rigidity of them; in cases where pipes have been disturbed by other excavations and settled, I found in all cases that the mains were broken. In a leading main from our old works, with cement joints, the main, a 10-inch one, was broken entirely off and fractured lengthwise besides, by the upheaval of the ground from frost. In some of the same mains that we had rejointed with lead the mains were drawn apart, drawing the lead out, but with very little loss of gas, as the gasket being driven in tight prevented any great leakage. In cases of this kind the lead was easily driven back, and the joint made perfectly tight again. I have never in our city put in any street mains that I have not used lead in the joints, and in laying mains we always make them gas tight with the gasket used.

"At the present time we have over 90 miles of street mains laid, and outside of our loss from street lamps (we get paid for three foot burners and they average about 3¼ foot) our loss from leakage will not exceed 6 per cent. We have suffered severe loss of gas from sewering in our city. In some cases where there are railroad tracks in the streets, the sewers have been run on both sides of the street, alongside and parallel with our pipes; these excavations are much deeper than our mains lie, and the earth is always filled in loosely and left to settle.

"In cases of this kind, whole blocks of mains were dragged down, the pipe broken, and the joints partially pulled apart; at the same time the leakage from the joints was not so great, the gasket preventing the leakage. In laying street mains, what you want particularly to attend to, and especially in the East here, where you have colder weather than we have (we have not seen much winter until we came on here), is to get them down under the surface a sufficient depth to protect them from the frost. With us the least depth is 2 feet 9 inches under the surface of the street, and I am confident, could our mains remain in the ground as we put them down, our loss from leakage by them would be very small indeed. While, as I stated in the beginning, I have no doubt that a cement joint can be made tight, I can see no benefit in using cement for the purpose, as I consider lead far superior in accommodating itself to any upheaval or settling of the earth where the mains are laid down."

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=Successful Shad Hatching.=

Professor J. W. Milner, who has charge of the shad hatching operations under the direction of the United States Fish Commissioner, Professor Baird, is now engaged in the preparation of the report of the work for the season just completed. Speaking of the work on the Atlantic seaboard, and the distribution of young fish, the report says that at the Salmon Creek Station, on Albemarle Sound, they obtained 12,730,000 eggs, and turned out 3,000,000 young fish. At the Havre de Grace Station 12,230,000 eggs were obtained, and 9,575,000 young fish were turned out. About 6,000,000 young shad have been distributed in the rivers emptying into the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico during the season. The distribution of shad during the past season has been carried on on a much larger scale than in any previous year, and with great success. The restocking of the rivers of the Atlantic is only the work of a few years.

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=New Use for Lemon Verbena.=

The well known fragrant garden favorite, the sweet-scented or lemon verbena (_Lippia citriodora_), seems to have other qualities to recommend it than those of the fragrance for which it is usually cultivated. The author of a recent work, entitled "Among the Spanish People," describes it as being systematically gathered in Spain, where it is regarded as a fine stomachic and cordial. It is used either in the form of a cold decoction, sweetened, or five or six leaves are put into a teacup, and hot tea poured upon them. The author says that the flavor of the tea thus prepared "is simply delicious, and no one who has drunk his Pekoe with it will ever again drink it without a sprig of lemon verbena." And he further states that if this be used one need "never suffer from flatulence, never be made nervous or old-maidish, never have cholera, diarrhea, or loss of appetite."

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=A VELOCIPEDE FEAT EXTRAORDINARY.=

Two intrepid velocipedists, M. le Baron Emanuel de Graffenried de Burgenstein, aged twenty years and six months, and a member of the Society of Velocipede Sport, of Paris, has accomplished, with M. A. Laumaillé d'Angers, the greatest distance that has been made with a velocipede in France.

Leaving Paris on March 16, they returned on the 24th of April, after having traveled a distance of more than three thousand miles.

Their route extended through a part of the west, the middle, and the south of France, Italy, and southern Switzerland. They traveled through Orléans, Tours, Poitiers, Angoulême, Bordeaux, Montauban, Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseilles, Toulon, Nice, Menton, San-Remo, Genoa, Turin, Milan, the Simplon--where they barely escaped destruction by an avalanche--Vevay, Berne, Lausanne, Geneva, Dijon, Troy, and Provins. The longest distance that they accomplished in a single day, was between Turin and Milan, a distance of 90 miles, which they made in 9½ hours.

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=Superior Excellence of American Goods.=

The _Post_, of Birmingham, England, remarks with regard to American competition, that "perhaps the most humiliating feature of the business for British manufacturers is the fact that their competitors are prevailing, not through the cheapness, but through the excellence of their goods. Time was when English workmanship ranked second to none, and the names of our great manufacturing firms were a guarantee for the sterling quality of the goods they turned out; but competitions, trades unions, piece work, short hours, and other incidents of the 'march of progress' have altered all that. Complaints, received by hardware merchants from their customers abroad, are not confined to the goods of second class firms. Manufacturers who have obtained a world-wide reputation for their products are frequently convicted of sending out scamped and unfinished work, and they do not venture to deny the impeachment, pleading only that the most vigilant must be sometimes at fault, and that their men, unfortunately, are not to be depended upon. In other cases it is the merchants or their customers who are to blame for the inferior quality of the articles by cutting prices so low as to preclude the possibility of honest work, thinking, probably, that anything is good enough for a foreign or colonial market. But whatever the cause, the fact is now undeniable, that a great deal of the manufactured produce shipped from this country of late years has been of a very low standard, and that the American manufacturers have consequently had an easy task in beating it."

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=Petroleum Oils as Lubricators.=

Oils from petroleum are now produced suitable for nearly every mechanical process for which animal oils have heretofore been used, not excepting those intended for cylinder purposes. A serious objection attaching to the animal oils is present in petroleum. If, through the exhaust steam, some of the oil be carried into the boiler, foaming or priming is the consequence, but the same thing happening in the case of petroleum is rather a benefit than otherwise, for it not only does not cause foaming, but it prevents incrustation or adhesion of the scale or deposit, and this aids in the preservation of the boiler, and is perhaps the best preventive of the many everywhere suggested.

Often, in removing the cylinder head and the plate covering the valves of an engine, we see evidences of corrosion or action on the surfaces, differing entirely from ordinary wear, and the engineer is generally at a loss how to account for it. According to the general impression grease or animal oil is the preservative of the metal, and is the last thing suspected of being the cause of its general disintegration. The reason of this is that vegetable and animal oils consist of fatty acids, such as stearic, magaric, oleic, etc. They are combined with glycerin as a base, and, under ordinary conditions, are neutrals to metals generally, and on being applied they keep them from rusting by shielding them from the action of air and moisture. But in the course of time the influence of the air causes decomposition and oxidation, the oils become rancid, as it is called, which is acid, and they act on the metals. What happens at the ordinary temperature slowly goes on rapidly in the steam cylinder, where a new condition is reached. The oils are subjected to the heat of high pressure steam, which dissociates or frees these acids from their base, and in this condition they attack the metal and hence destroy it.

This applies as well to vegetable as to oils of animal origin, fish or sperm oil included. Petroleum and oils derived therefrom (generally called mineral oils) are entirely free from this objection. Petroleum contains no oxygen, and hence it cannot form an acid, and therefore cannot attack metal. It is entirely neutral, and so bland that it may be and is used medicinally as a dressing to wounds and badly abraded surfaces where cerates of ordinary dressing would give pain.--_Coal Trade Journal._

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=Influence of Light on Plants and Animals.=

Professor Paul Bert, who has recently devoted a great deal of attention to the study of the influence of light on animals and plants, denies that the leaves of the sensitive plant close on the approach of evening, the same as if they had been touched by the hand. On the contrary, he finds that from 9 in the evening, after drooping, they expand again and attain the maximum of rigidity at 2 in the morning. What is commonly called the "sensitiveness" of plants is but the external manifestations of the influences of light. Professor Bert placed plants in lanterns of different colored glass; those under the influence of green glass drooped in the course of a few days as completely as if placed in utter darkness, proving that green rays are useless, and equal to none at all. In a few weeks all plants without exception thus treated died. It has been proved by the experiments of Zimiriareff that the reducing power of the green matter of plants is proportionate to the quantity of red rays absorbed, and Bert shows that green glass precisely intercepts these colored rays, and that plants exist more or less healthily in blue and violet rays. In the animal world phenomena of a directly opposite nature are found, and of a more complex character. Here the light acts on the skin and the movements of the body, either directly or through the visual organs. M. Pouchet has shown the changes in color that certain animals undergo, according to the medium in which they live. For instance, young turbots resting on white sand assume an ashy tint, but when resting on a black bottom become brown; when deprived of its eyes the fish exhibits no change of color in its skin; the phenomenon, therefore, seems to be nervous or optical. Professor Bert placed a piece of paper with a cut design on the back of a sleeping chameleon; on bringing a lamp near the animal the skin gradually became brown, and on removing the paper a well defined image of the pattern appeared. In this case the light acted directly, and without nervous intervention. If, however, the eye of the chameleon be extracted, the corresponding side of the animal becomes insensible to the influence of the light.

Professor Bert's conclusion, therefore, is that the circulation in the transparent layers of the skin must be affected by light. According to Dr. Bouchard a sunstroke is the effect of the direct action of light upon the skin, produced by the blue and violet rays. The heat producing rays have no part in such accidents, as proved by the fact that workmen exposed to intense heats do not feel their fatal effect. Professor Bert, in a series of experiments on a variety of animals, found that none avoided light, but all rather sought it; and the lowest forms, like the highest, absorbed the same rays. As regards intensity of color, however, there was a difference, some being more partial to one ray than another. Thus the microscopic daphne of the pond preferred yellow; violet was less in request; spiders seemed to enjoy blue rather than red rays--so resembling people suffering from color blindness. No two persons are sensible to the same shades or tones, while absorbing the same light; and this would seem to indicate that the retina possesses a selective power.

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=New Mechanical Inventions.=

An improved Weighing Scale has been patented by Hosea Willard, of Vergennes, Vt. The object of this invention is to economize time in ascertaining the weight of an article by avoiding the necessity for shifting the poise on the scale beam. It consists in providing a scale beam with a number of dishes suspended from different points on said beam, and representing or corresponding with different weights, so that the weight of an article may be ascertained by placing it in one or more of said dishes and observing which dish is depressed.

William John, of Rigdon, Ind., has patented an improved Tire Setting and Cooling Apparatus, by which the tire may be set by one person, easily and quickly, without burning the fellies, and without straining the wheel by the unequal cooling of the tire.

Joseph A. Mumford, of Avondale, Nova Scotia, Canada, has patented an improved machine for Sawing and Jointing Shingles. This machine cannot be properly described without engravings. It has an ingenious feeding device, and its flywheel carries the jointing knives.

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=Ill-balanced Production.=

The Philadelphia _Record_ sensibly remarks that the popular complaint of over-production is a mistake. Though of a few things we make or mine too much, our main trouble arises from not producing enough, in variety if not in quantity.

"The wants of mankind never can be satisfied. Every new means of supplying a want creates new wants. They grow by what they feed on. As long as humanity is so constituted, over-production, in a general and enlarged sense, is impossible. It is this impossible thing with which the reformers would deal who propose to work fewer hours each day, or fewer hours in the week. The trouble they deplore does not exist; the remedy they propose defeats itself. A man cannot get rid of his load by shifting it from his right hand to his left hand. Production will not be stopped by making men their own employers certain hours in the day or certain days in the week, instead of allowing them to pursue their usual avocations.

"The real trouble, which the labor reformers seem incompetent to fathom, is that there is not enough diversity in employments. What is desired is more work in productive enterprises, a more diffused industry, and a closer commercial connection with those countries wherein we can make desirable exchanges both of our raw material and our manufactured products. Every miner that drops his pick and takes up a hoe, every idle man that turns himself into an earner of wages, every person that picks up some loose thread of employment, every capitalist that takes advantage of stagnating industry and cheap material to build a house or beautify or improve a country seat, or set on foot some new process of manufacture, does something toward working out the problem which is puzzling the economists. In good time the surplus iron and coal will be sold; new populations will want new railroads; recuperated capital will gather confidence and take hold of new enterprises, and the whole nation will move forward again to more assured prosperity and to vaster undertakings."

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=Labor in Germany.=

The consul at Barmen reports that for agricultural labor the pay varies greatly, according to the proximity to or remoteness from manufacturing centers; and ranges from fifty-six cents a day in the neighborhood of Barmen to thirty-one cents a day in the lower Rhine valley, and as low as eighteen cents in parts of Silesia. At Barmen, Crefeld and Düsseldorf, carpenters, coppersmiths, plumbers, machinists and wagonsmiths earn fifty-one to seventy-five cents daily; saddlers and shoemakers forty-seven to fifty-two cents daily; bakers and brewers, with board and lodging, from $1.42 to $2.14 weekly, and without board from sixty cents a day to $4.28 a week; farm hands are paid from $107 to $215 yearly, with maintenance; railroad laborers from fifty-six to eighty-three cents per day, and as high as ninety-five cents daily for piece work on tunnels; silk weavers can earn $2.15 to $2.85 a week per loom; factory women $2.15, and children $1 a week. Business and wages are very low. In good times wages are eighty per cent higher. The cost of the necessaries of life has increased some fifty per cent in thirteen years, although it is now but little higher than five years ago. A man and wife with two or three children can live in two or three rooms in a poor and comfortless manner for $275 a year, and to support such an establishment all the members have to work ten or twelve hours daily. For a family of six persons the cost is about $7 per week--an amount but few families can earn, as the depression of trade and the reduction of time allow few to do a full week's work, although wages are nominally a trifle higher than five years ago.

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=Petroleum June Review.=

DRILLING WELL ACCOUNT.

The low price of oil and large accumulation of stock in the producing regions have had the effect to lessen operations in this department during the month of June.

The total number of drilling wells in all the districts, at the close of the month, was 266, which was 110 less than in the preceding month. Rigs erected and being erected 243, against 309 last month. The number of drilling wells completed during the month was 269, being 151 less than in May. Aggregate production of the new wells was 3,788 barrels, against 6,851 barrels in May. The total number of dry holes developed in the month was 22, against 42 in May.

The operators in the great northern field (Bradford district) have curtailed operations to an extent which will compare favorably with the operators in the other portions of the producing regions, as will be seen by the following statement, namely:

Number of wells drilling at the close of the month, 187, against 284 at the close of the previous month. Number of drilling wells completed in June, 193, against 346 in May. Number of rigs erected and being erected, 196, against 234 in May.

PRODUCTION.

The daily average production for the month was 40,575 barrels, being a decrease of 227 barrels. The new wells completed in June failed to make good the falling off of the old ones, by decreasing the daily average 227 barrels. Bradford district shows a daily average production of 16,000 barrels, being an increase of 1,280 barrels over last month.

The aggregate production in June of all the other districts combined, with the aid of 76 new wells, decreased the daily average 1,507 barrels.

SHIPMENTS.

The shipments in June, out of the producing regions, were 174,225 barrels larger than in the preceding month. The total shipments of crude, and refined reduced to crude equivalent, by railroad, river and pipes to the following points, were 1,135,119 barrels:

New York took 555,794 bbls. Pittsburg " 153,182 " Cleveland " 239,389 " Philadelphia " 73,426 " Boston " 29,266 " Baltimore " 26,623 " Richmond " 7,000 " Ohio River refiners took 5,200 " Other local points took 45,239 " --------- Total shipments 1,135,119 "

Included in the above shipments there were 140,299 barrels of refined from Titusville and Oil City, which is equal to 187,065 barrels of crude.--_Stowell's Petroleum Reporter._

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