MISCELLANY 



763 



the Rocky mountains were almost the ulti- 

 ma Thuleof Western adventure. The same 

 region now is wellnigh the geographical 

 centre of the West, and has been the field 

 of much good work by naturalists. How- 

 ever, that insect, although most assiduous- 

 ly looked for, was never found, and belief 

 had nearly settled down that Say was in 

 error about his new species, or that the 

 species had become extinct. Unfortunate- 

 ly, Say's collections were all long ago de- 

 stroyed, and only his published description 

 of the species remained. 



In the current number of Psyche, E. 

 P. Austin says : " Last summer, while en- 

 gaged on the survey of the north bound- 

 ary of Nebraska, I visited one of the nu- 

 merous hills of drifting sands with which a 

 large part of that section is covered, when 

 I saw a cicindela fly up, which was evident- 

 ly quite different from any thing I had ever 

 seen before ; on following it, it lighted on a 

 steep slope of bare sand, where, after some 

 exertion, I succeeded in capturing it. By 

 going over the sand, I saw others, and dur- 

 ing the time that I remained in that vicin- 

 ity about an hour they increased in fre- 

 quency, a circumstance which I thought 

 due to disturbing them in their hiding- 

 places by trampling the sand." 



On his return East, Austin worked the 

 insect out ; and lo ! it was the long-lost spe- 

 cies, Cicindela limbata of Say. 



The rediscoverer says : " It may appear 

 singular that the species should have re- 

 mained undetected so long ; but owing to 

 its small size and great activity, as well as 

 because it probably is confined to the barren 

 sand-hills, which are not promising regions to 

 collect in, it is evident that, but for its acci- 

 dental discovery, it might have remained 

 undetected much longer." 



Economizing the Heat of Waste Steam. 



Mr. Spence lately exhibited in London 

 his plan for the employment of waste steam 

 as a substitute for fuel. This method is 

 founded on a discovery made by the father 

 of the inventor, and announced by him to 

 the British Association in 1869, viz., that 

 steam liberated at atmospheric pressure, 

 and passed into a saline solution having a 

 boiling temperature higher than that of 

 water, raises the solution to its own boiling- 



point. Thus, as Mr. Spence showed ex- 

 perimentally, if we take a nitrate-of-soda so- 

 lution, which boils at 250, and blow into it 

 steam at 212, the temperature of the solu- 

 tion will be raised to 250", the steam con- 

 densing and yielding its heat. Mr. Spence 

 uses the solution of caustic soda, both on 

 account of its high boiling-point, and be- 

 cause it does not act injuriously upon iron. 

 The exhaust steam will raise this solution 

 to a temperature of 375, and the heated 

 solution is then circulated through pipes 

 in an ordinary boiler, and its heat is radi- 

 ated, for the purpose of generating steam 

 in the place of heat derived from fresh 

 fuel. If the boiler is at a pressure of 30 

 pounds, the solution will leave it at a tem- 

 perature of 250, so that 125 degrees of heat 

 would have been yielded to the water. The 

 solution having been to some extent diluted 

 by the condensation of the exhaust steam, 

 its capacity for heat will be corresponding- 

 ly reduced ; and, if steam at 212 were again 

 blown through it, it would not reach the 

 same temperature as before. It is there- 

 fore passed into another boiler of ordinary 

 construction, where it takes the place of 

 water, and is concentrated by steam being 

 generated from it; and in this way its ca- 

 pacity for receiving heat is restored. 



Mr. Spence maintained that, if, by taking 

 advantage of his father's discovery, a mode 

 of utilizing the large amount of latent heat 

 contained in the steam now thrown into 

 the atmosphere could be brought into prac- 

 tical operation, so that this latent heat 

 could be made to do actual work, the dis- 

 covery would be one of enormous value, 

 and he announced his intention of speedily 

 trying the experiment on a manufacturing 

 scale. 



Reproduction of Burnt Records. M. 



Rathelot, an officer of the Paris law-courts, 

 has succeeded, in an ingenious manner, in 

 transcribing a number of the registers 

 which were burnt during the Commune. 

 These registers had remained so long in the 

 fire that each of them seemed to have be- 

 come an homogeneous block, more like a 

 slab of charcoal than any thing else, and, 

 when an attempt was made to detach a leaf, 

 it fell away into powder. Many scientific 

 men had examined these unpromising black 



