6o 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 312 



ing the necessary reduction in speed, — about one turn of the car- 

 wheels to ten or twelve of the motor. A single pair of gears would 

 be sufficient for light work, but for climbing hills a single reduction 

 would make the strain on the teeth too great. The efficiency of 

 spur-gears is very great, and, when properly constructed, there is 

 very little noise or jar. A much more compact arrangement, 

 though a less efficient one, has been adopted by Mr. Reckenzaun. 

 He uses a simple worm gearing, where the motor-shaft and car- 

 axle are at right angles to each other. Such an arrangement has 

 been generally avoided because of the supposed great loss through 

 friction. From his own experiments, however, Mr. Reckenzaun 

 concludes that the losses are greatly overestimated, and by taking 

 especial care in the lubrication he has obtained efficiencies that 

 compare favorably with the efficiency of spur-gears. But it is in 

 the storage-battery that the greatest interest of the system lies. It 

 does not seem to be any great improvement over the present bat- 

 tery in weight — the cells on a car weigh about two tons — or in 

 efficiency, but it is claimed that the durability will be greater than 

 that of the ordinary type. The plates are made by forming by 

 pressure cylinders of active material, a sixth of an inch in diameter, 

 and about an inch and a quarter long, putting them in a mould and 

 casting lead around them. The cylinders are only about a tenth 

 of an inch apart, while the thickness of the lead in which they are 

 embedded is one-eighth of an inch. The advantages of this form 

 of plate lie in the fact that the active material is held firmly in its 

 place, and that the greater part of the expansion is in the direction 

 of the length of the cylinders : so the chance of buckling is less, 

 while a large active surface is offered to the action of the acid. 

 The total weight of the car, with thirty passengers, is about seven 

 tons and a half, and about five electrical horse-power is required to 

 draw it on a level at a velocity of seven to eight miles an hour. On 

 a hill with a grade of five per cent, the motors absorb twenty elec- 

 trical horse-power. The car described has been built by Messrs. 

 Stephens, Smith, & Co., and is for use in Melbourne, Australia. 



Snow-Storms on Electric Roads. — The winter has thus 

 far been so mild that electric railroads have hardly had a fair test 

 as to their capability of working under adverse circumstances. One 

 snow-storm in St. Joseph failed to stop the electric line there ; and 

 now we have news of a blizzard at Davenport, lo., through which 

 the Sprague cars ran without interruption. In this last case the 

 snow — of the heavy, damp variety — covered the streets to a 

 depth of four or five inches, with drifts in places across the tracks. 

 While this is satisfactory enough, it must be remembered that it is 

 not the wet, slushy snow that is most to be feared, but the dry va- 

 riety, that cakes on the track and prevents contact being made be- 

 tween the wheel and rail. The only safeguard against trouble from 

 this last cause is to keep cleaning-cars going as long as the snow- 

 storm continues. There is another difficulty, especially when a 

 heavy overhead wire is used, and this is from the formation of a 

 coating of ice or sleet, preventing the trolley from touching the 

 wire. While in the two cases cited there has been nothing but en- 

 couragement, yet there have been rumors of troubles that occurred 

 at Washington, at Lynn, and perhaps at Brockton, on account of 

 snow and ice. These were no doubt caused by insufficient experi- 

 ence, and from neglecting common precautions, and were only 

 small matters at the most, but they at least show that precautions 

 must be taken. 



Application of Electric Motors to Mining. — At the 

 Drane Colliery, near Osceola, Clearfield County, Penn., Mr. F. M. 

 Lechner has devised a most interesting application of motors to 

 mining-work. A ten-horse-power Sprague motor is mounted on a 

 truck running on rails, so it can be easily moved from one place to 

 another. The weight of the machine is something less than a 

 thousand pounds. The cutter to be operated is set in position in 

 the space to be cleared, and is connected to the motor by a f-inch 

 rope belt, movable pulleys on jack-screws being so adjusted that 

 the cutter can be operated at any angle from the motor. The lat- 

 ter is about thirty feet from the cutter, the tension of the belt being 

 adjusted by moving the truck one way or the other. The machine 

 runs easily and cuts well. By this plan three cutters can be worked 

 from one motor, two being adjusted while the third is at work, the 

 motor being moved from one to the other as it is needed. It was 



found, on a preliminary trial of this apparatus, that by its use two 

 men could excavate one hundred tons in ten hours, and that they 

 can move the cutter as often as desired without any auxiliary aid. 

 The efficiency of the dynamo and motor are each over ninety per 

 cent, and, allowing ten per cent loss on the line, between seventy 

 and seventy-five per cent of the power delivered to the dyriamo 

 can be called on at the motor for work. It has been estimated 

 that the cost of equipping a mine with electric power is only half of 

 that of compressed air, while the working expenses are about in the 

 same proportion. 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON. 



Some Habits of the Omahas. — Electrical Conductivity of Glass. — 

 Fish Commission Experiments, — The Woman's Anthropological 

 Society. — The Survey for Irrigation. — Indian Relics from Florida. 



Some Habits of the Omahas. 



The following statements have just been made by an Omaha 

 Indian (Samuel Fremont) to Rev. J. Owen Dorsey : — 



The Omahas used to blow the smoke of the pipe in six directions, 

 up, down, and to the four winds, using a prayer in each case. The 

 exact order in which the winds were addressed has been forgotten ; 

 but the smoker could pray to the being above first, if he wished, 

 and then to the being below, or vice versa. The earth itself was 

 spoken to as if it was a person. The formula was as follows : 

 " One of you lies on his back [i.e., the earth], the other one sits 

 above : both of you help me ! " Then followed the petition, " Oh, 

 ye who cause the four winds to reach a place, help ye me ! " 



White people think that the Omahas knew nothing about Wa- 

 kanda (a higher power, the Mysterious Power) before the meeting 

 of the two races ; but that is not so. They had many old sayings, 

 used before they met the white people, such as, " Wakanda has 

 decided for him his own (child, descendant, etc.)," " Wakanda 

 knew," and " Wakanda seems to have aided him." These were 

 employed when an Indian met with unexpected good luck. But 

 the Pawnees had many more sayings about Wakanda than the 

 Omahas had. 



Before the advent of the white people, the Omahas used to get 

 the wild honey, which they called " bee-dung." Its present name 

 is " bee-gum." They put the comb in a kettle, in which they let it 

 melt and boil, skimming off the impurities. They used the sirup 

 as the white people do molasses. Unless the bees were trouble- 

 some, they did not smoke them when they took the comb. 



Electrical Conductivity of Glass. 



Dr. C. Barus has just completed a protracted investigation on 

 the effect of stress (traction torsion) on the electrical conductivity 

 of glass at different temperatures between ioo° and 360°. The 

 question is of unique importance, because the conductivity of glass 

 is wholly electrolytic. He finds that stress of the kind given ma- 

 terially increases conductivity ; whence it follows that the time- 

 rate at which molecular reconstrliction takes place in glass is defi- 

 nitely greater when this substance is longitudinally extended or 

 twisted than when it is free from such strain. The result has a 

 direct bearing on the viscosity of the sblid. 



Fish Commission Experiments. 



Marshall McDonald, United States fish commissioner, is making 

 a comprehensive experiment in salt and fresh water aquariums. 

 He has already constructed several aquariums on the lower floor 

 of the building, and stocked them ; and he is now building a large 

 one, 120 feet long, under a separate roof. The commissioner said 

 to the correspondent of Science, " I am going to bring the seashore 

 to Washington, and assemble here a full representation of our ma- 

 rine life." He has sixty or seventy species already sporting in salt 

 and fresh water tanks, one of the latter containing specimens of 

 the earliest type of fresh-water fish, — the ganoids. • 



The Woman's Anthropological Society. 



One of the active scientific societies of Washington, and one 

 whose work is of peculiar interest in that it is carried on solely by 

 the sex sometimes supposed " incapable of generalizing," is the 

 Woman's Anthropological Society. Despite the temporary retire- 



