142 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



us milk and wait to be milked, because the 

 ancestral cow left her calf in hiding, and 

 went far afield for pasture. Her chewing 

 the cud depends upon her habit in early 

 days of eating hastily when exposed to the 

 attacks of wild beasts, and then digesting at 

 leisure in her lair with comparative safety. 



Abatement of Smoke. — The best method 

 of abating the smoke nuisance has under- 

 gone a full discussion at the instance of the 

 Franklin Institute, several meetings having 

 been devoted to the subject, and communi- 

 cations having been mvited and i-eceived 

 from engineers and scientific men in differ- 

 ent parts of the country, and the subject has 

 been treated practically from a scientific 

 point of view. The participants in the dis- 

 cussion seem all to have agreed that the 

 abolition of smoke is practicable and not 

 difficult ; and most of them prescribe for the 

 accomplishment of it the simple remedy of 

 securing a perfect combustion of the fuel. 

 This can be effected, according to Professor 

 Thurston, of Cornell, and the others, through 

 care and skill in stoking and by the use of 

 properly constructed furnaces, without any 

 costly apparatus. " Secure maximum tem- 



perature of furnace, producing the whole 

 heat of combustion, as nearly as practicable, 

 before commencing to take off heat for ap- 

 plication to steam-making." This, accord- 

 ing to Prof. L. M. Haupt, can be largely 

 effected by intelligent firing, whereby a large 

 amount of oxygen is admitted over the in- 

 candescent material instead of being forced 

 through it. Experiences were related with 

 patent devices, which with a bad fireman 

 produced no better results than the plain 

 fire box with a brick arch and a good fire- 

 man ; and with the steam jet, which pro- 

 moted quicker and more thorough mixture 

 of the gases and air, and was good ; but no 

 device found better favor than the judicious, 

 even distribution of the right proportion of 

 added fuel over a hot fire. Finally, resolu- 

 tions were adopted declaring the continuous 

 and frequent emission of dense black smoke 

 imnecessary, and advising that it be not per- 

 mitted within the city limits. Accounts of 

 special antismoke devices were avoided in 

 this discussion, which related to general 

 principles only ; but inventors were given 

 opportunity to describe and illustrate their 

 apparatus at two subsequent meetings of the 

 institute held in the fall of 1897. 



MINOR PARAGRAPHS. 



M. MoissAN, who has had much success 

 in preparing carbides of the metals by heat- 

 ing charcoal and the metals directly at the 

 temperature of the electric furnace, now de- 

 scribes a new and general method of pre- 

 paring these substances by placing together 

 in the furnace a metallic oxide and carbide 

 of calcium in fusion. The metallic oxide is 

 reduced ; the metal unites with the carbon, 

 producing a crystalline carbide, and the oxy- 

 gen combines with the calcium to form lime. 

 By this method M. Moissan has obtained 

 crystaUized carbides of aluminum, manga- 

 nese, tungsten, molybdenum, titanium, and 

 chromium. In case the metal does not give 

 a combination with carbon, it is obtained in 

 free state as a melted button. There have 

 been reduced in this way by carbide of cal- 

 cium, to form free metals, the oxides of lead, 

 bismuth, and tin. Silica is likewise easily re- 

 duced by carbon and gives carbide of sili- 

 con, or carborundum, a substance much used 

 in industry. 



President Gilman observes, in his semi- 

 centennial historical discourse at the Shef- 

 field Scientific School, that the institution 

 has been a department of a university " which 

 never suffered its love of letters to blind its 

 eyes to the value of science. In the days of 

 closely restricted income, during the first half 

 of the century, chemistry, mineralogy, geol- 

 ogy, botany, mathematics, physics, meteor- 

 ology, and astronomy were taught in Yale. 

 Nor will any one think that scientific re- 

 search was undervalued if be recalls the 

 preparation of Dana's Mineralogy, the light 

 that was thrown on meteoric showers, the 

 studies of the aurora and of the zodiacal 

 light, and the search for an intramercurial 

 planet. Very different would have been the 

 Sheffield record if it were not associated with 

 the fame, the fortune, and the followers of 

 a greater alma mater. . . . No conflict of 

 studies has been heard of ; no hostility be- 

 tween science and letters ; no ' warfare ' be- 

 tween science and religion. The Sheffield 



