338 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



fathoms. Soundings have been made in the 

 Atlantic Ocean, ninety miles off the island of 

 St. Thomas, in the West Indies, which showed 

 a depth of 23,250 feet, .or about four and one- 

 half miles. In 1872-'74, the ship Challenger 

 made a voyage around the world for the pur- 

 pose of taking deep-sea soundings, and the 

 result showed that the greatest depth in the 

 Pacific Ocean was between four and one-half 

 and five miles, while that of the Atlantic was 

 probably as given above. 



Ocean Steam Navigation. The first 

 ocean steam navigation in the world was by 

 the steamboat Phoenix, built by Colonel John 

 Stevens, and navigated from Hoboken, N. J., 

 to Philadelphia in 1808 by Robert L. Stevens. 

 In 1819, the Savannah, an American vessel of 

 380 tons burden, built at Corlear's Hook, 

 N. Y., made the first steam voyage across the 

 Atlantic. The steamer went from New York 

 to Savannah, Ga., and thence to England. 

 From England she proceeded to St. Petersburg, 

 Russia, where an effort was made to dispose of 

 her to the czar. The sale not being consum- 

 mated, she returned to New York, and was 

 afterwards converted into a sailing vessel. 



Ohm's Law is so named from its discov- 

 erer, Georg Simon Ohm, a German physicist, 

 born 1787, died 1854. He devoted himself 

 particularly to the investigation of the laws 

 governing galvanic currents, and by a combina- 

 tion of mathematical and experimental inves- 

 tigation, carried on for many years, he at length 

 discovered and established the law which forms 

 the basis of the mathematical theory of elec- 

 tricity. His discoveries were first announced 

 in scientific journals in 1825-'26. This funda- 

 mental theorem, known as Ohm's Law, may 

 be briefly stated as follows : The strength of 

 a galvanic current is equal to the electro-motive 

 force divided by the resistance. The term ohm 

 is now used to designate the standard measure 

 or unit of galvanic resistance, and is equal to 

 the resistance of a cylindrical wire of pure 

 copper one twentieth of an inch in diameter 

 and 250 feet long. 



Oleomargarine. The belief which is 

 prevalent among the masses that the ingredients 

 which constitute oleomargarine are unclean is 

 fallacious, as will be seen by the following 

 description : Clean beef fat and a proportion- 

 ate quantity of salt are by process of machin- 

 ery and heat transformed into what is called 

 white stearine and butter oil, otherwise the oil 

 which has been pressed from the fat. This 

 oil is then churned in the proportion of about 

 442 pounds of butter oil, 120 pounds of milk, 

 37 J pounds of cream-made butter, and 1J 

 ounces of bicarbonate of soda. To this some 

 coloring matter is added, and the mixture 



churned for some fifty minutes, giving as a 

 result a smooth mass resembling an emulsion 

 of cream. This is put into ice-cream freezers 

 and kept constantly agitated until it solidifies. 

 It is then worked over with revolving butter- 

 workers to get the necessary amount of salt 

 well into it, and is then packed in firkins or 

 made into molds. Science shows that 'chem- 

 ically, pure oleomargarine butter differs but 

 slightly from pure cream butter. By analysis 

 the constituents of cream butter are : Water 

 11.968, butter solids 88.032. Those of oleo- 

 margarine are: Water 11.203, butter solids 

 88.797. The process of making oleomarga- 

 rine was invented by M. Hippolyte Niege, a 

 French chemist, about 1872 ; but later exper- 

 iments, made by Doctor Mott of Xew York, 

 added to the commercial value of the original 

 process. The name is derived from two words 

 oleine and margarine. Oleine is the thin, 

 oily part of fats, and margarine is a peculiar, 

 pearl-like substance, extracted from some veg- 

 etable oils, and also from some animal fats, 

 the name being of Latin origin, from mar- 

 garita, a pearl. 



Painting. An art, according to Plato, of 

 the highest antiquity in Egypt. Osymandyas 

 caused his exploits to be represented in paint- 

 ing, 2100 B. C. Pausias, of Sicyon, was the in- 

 ventor of the encaustic, a method of burning 

 the colors into wood or ivory, 335 B.C. The 

 ancients considered Sicyon the nursery of 

 painters. Antiphiles, an Egyptian, is said to 

 have been the inventor of the grotesque, 332 

 B. C. The art was introduced at Rome from 

 Etruria, by Quintus Fabius, who on that ac- 

 count was styled Pictor. The first excellent 

 pictures were brought from Corinth by Mum- 

 mius,146 B. C. After the death of Augustus 

 not a single painter of eminence appeared for 

 several ages ; Ludius, who was very cele- 

 brated, is supposed to have been the last, about 

 A. D. 14. Painting on canvas seems to have 

 been known at Rome in A. D. 66. Bede, the 

 Saxon historian, who died in 735, knew some- 

 thing of the art. It revived about the end of 

 the thirteenth century and to Giovanni Cima- 

 bue of Florence is awarded the honor of its 

 restoration. It was at once encouraged and 

 generously patronized in Italy. John Yan- 

 Eyck, of Bruges, and his brother Hubert, are 

 regarded as the founders of the Flemish school 

 of painting in oil, 1415. Paulo Uccello was 

 the first to study perspective. The earliest 

 mention of the art in England is A. D. 1523, 

 about which time Henry the Eighth patronized 

 Hulbein, and invited Titian to his court. Wil- 

 kins invented a process of using oil with min- 

 eral colors for frescoes in 1853. The first 

 practicing Artist of celebrity ^in the United 



