NOTES. 



127 



NOTES. 



The Department of Agriculture has re- 

 ceived from General Charles P. Stone, now 

 in the military service of the Khedive of 

 Egypt, a lot of red-date seed, with which it 

 is designed to make the experiment of grow- 

 ing the date-palm in the United States. 

 General Stone, from what he has seen of the 

 date-producing regions of Northeastern Af- 

 rica, and from his observations in the Desert 

 of the Colorado, between Carissa Creek and 

 Fort Yuma, is inclined to believe that the 

 greater portion of the latter region can be 

 made productive and very valuable by the 

 culture of this tree. The date-palm, he 

 writes, not only does not require much wa- 

 ter, but much water is prejudicial to it, and 

 the climate of the Colorado Desert is strik- 

 ingly similar to that of some of the best date- 

 producing districts of Egypt. 



In a tower of the Temple of Ularo, in 

 Kioto, Japan, is suspended the largest bell 

 in the world. The date of its casting is un- 

 known. It measures 24 feet in height and 

 is 16 inches thick at the rim. It is sounded 

 by a suspended lever of wood, used like a 

 battering-ram, striking the bell on the out- 

 side. The Bolshoi (Giant) in Moscow, cast 

 in the sixteenth century, and recast in 1654, 

 was 21 feet high and 18 feet in diameter; 

 its weight was estimated at 288,000 pounds. 

 The metal of this bell was used in casting 

 the present "great bell of Moscow," the 

 Tsar Kolokol, 19 feet 3 inches high, and 

 about 19 feet in diameter ; estimated weight, 

 443,772 pounds. 



The Central Railroad of New Jersey 

 have, at their Communipaw shops, a small 

 gas-works for converting into illuminating 

 gas, oil-waste and other combustible mate- 

 rial collected aloug the line of road. The 

 fuel used in the gas-furnace is the screen- 

 ings from the locomotives a material pre- 

 viously used only for road-ballast. The gas 

 costs the company only 35 cents per thou- 

 sand feet, and enough is produced to supply 

 225 burners. Its illuminating power is said 

 to be very high. 



In the opinion of the Lancet, California 

 will, before long, be supplying Europe with 

 wines that will bear comparison with the 

 finest vintages of the Rhine and the Moselle. 

 A few years ago there was an exhibition at 

 Kensington, of the wines of many countries, 

 at which the wines from California took a 

 very high rank. An analysis of these 

 wines, recently published in "the Pharma- 

 ceutical Journal, makes a very favorable ex- 

 hibit for our Pacific slope vintages. 



The fourth annual report of the Buffalo 

 Society of Natural Sciences gives evidence 



of a highly-creditable degree of scientific 

 activity on the part of the members of the 

 society ; but we regret to notice that the 

 publication of the Bulletin has been for the 

 present suspended, from the want of funds 

 to continue it. During the year 1877 the so- 

 ciety's collections were used by the scholars 

 of the public schools of Buffalo as a means 

 of instruction in natural history. The num- 

 ber of books in the library has been con- 

 siderably increased. The zoological speci- 

 mens added to the collections during the 

 year were numerous. The original scientific 

 work of members of the society has af- 

 forded material for 33 memoirs, published 

 by Uie Department of the Interior, and in 

 various scientific journals. To the society 

 is due the credit of having inaugurated a 

 course of cheap winter evening lectures, at 

 an admission-fee of ten cents. 



The use of "toughened" glass is not 

 without its dangers, as we learn from the 

 experience of a certain Prof. Ricard. He 

 bought a child's cup of toughened glass, 

 which was exposed to hard usage for some 

 months, without suffering from the rough 

 treatment. But one evening it was left, with 

 a spoon in it, on a table, and the room was 

 shut. Shortly afterward a noise as of a pis- 

 tol-shot alarmed the whole household. On 

 entering the room, fragments of glass were 

 found scattered all around the cup had ex- 

 ploded after the manner of a Prince Rupert 

 drop. 



A process of engraving on glass and 

 crystal by means of electricity has been dis- 

 covered by M. Gaston Plante. The process 

 consists in covering the plate to be engraved 

 with a concentrated solution of nitrate of 

 potash, put in connection with one of the 

 poles of a battery, and in tracing the design 

 with a fine platinum point connected with 

 the other pole. M. Plante employs a battery 

 composed of 50 or 60 secondary elements. 



In an establishment at Oakland, Califor- 

 nia, the entrails of sheep are used for mak- 

 ing very serviceable belting for machinery. 

 First the entrails are cleaned and soaked for 

 a few days in brine. The prepared material 

 is then wound on bobbins, when it is ready 

 for working up either into ropes or flat belts. 

 A three-quarters-inch rope of this material 

 is capable of bearing a strain of seven tons. 

 The material, furthermore, is very durable 

 more than twice as durable as hemp. 



The directors of the Paris Exposition of 

 1878 intend to repeat, on a large scale, Foti- 

 cault's famous pendulum-experiment, show- 

 ing the rotation of the earth. The pen- 

 dulum to be suspended in the Champ de 

 Mars will be about 660 pounds in weight and 

 220 feet long, and will be so hung that the 



