28o 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 323 



the means shall come to hand, to a still larger measure of useful- 

 ness and honorable effort. 



— From his recent experiments on explosive mixtures of petro- 

 leum vapor and air, Col. Majendie concludes, says Engineering, 

 that one volume of liquid benzine will render 16,000 volumes of air 

 inflammable, and 5,000 volumes violently explosive. Though these 

 results show that great care is necessary in storing benzines and 

 crude petroleums, other of his experiments are more re-assuring, 

 as he has found that neither a glowing coal, sparks from a flint or 

 steel, or a flameless fusee, will ignite the most explosive mixture of 

 petroleum vapor and air, actual contact with a flame or white-hot 

 body being necessary. 



— On Wednesday, March 6, according to Engineei-mg, while a 

 number of torpedo-boats belonging to the French Government 

 were manoeuvring ofi the coast at Toulon, one of them turned 

 turtle, and three of her crew were drowned. The weather at the 

 time of the accident was fair, with a north-east wind blowing, and 

 a swell from the south-east. During the day every thing had gone 

 perfectly successfully till at about 4.30 in the afternoon the boats 

 proceeded to pass out of the Bay of St. Nazaire, between the Em- 

 bezi Island and the Grand Rouveau, on their way back to Toulon. 

 Three of the boats effected the passage in safety ; but the third. 

 No. 102, was, when partly through, struck by a heavy roller and 

 completely capsized. Her commander saved himself by clinging 

 to the rudder, and others of the crew also succeeded in escaping ; 

 but three of the engineers and mechanics, being in the engine-room 

 or the stokehold, were unable to get out, and were drowned. The 

 boat floated for forty-five minutes, and finally sank by the stern. 

 The screw, it is stated, continued to revolve for some time after 

 the boat had turned upside down. The No. 102 was a 53-ton boat, 

 114 feet 9 inches long, and belonged to a type which has been 

 much criticised, and of which the French Government own or have 

 ordered fifty-one specimens, most of which, it is said, have not yet 

 been delivered, which is fortunate for the authorities. The officers 

 of the navy have made many complaints as to the unseaworthiness 

 of these boats. Although this has been the first one that has 

 actually capsized, such a catastrophe has hitherto only been 

 avoided by the exercise of the greatest care on the part of their 

 crews. 



— The Paris Exhibition authorities have not yet decided upon 

 the plan to be adopted as to jury examinations of exhibits, or as to 

 reports and awards ; nor indeed is it by any means settled whether 

 there will be any juries, reports, or awards at all. One thing, in- 

 deed, seems quite certain, — that there will be no distribution of 

 medals, the utmost that would be done being the possible giving 

 of diplomas of different shades of merit. Upon the whole, the 

 chances appear in favor of a total abandonment of the jury and 

 award system, and in its place the substitution of an official docu- 

 ment given to every exhibiter, certifying his presence at the exhibi- 

 tion. The object of such a certificate does not appear very clear. 

 So far as England is concerned, the editors of Engineering be- 

 lieve that the general feeling of exhibiters will be against the grant- 

 ing of awards ; and this for several reasons. At Manchester and 

 Glasgow, the abandonment of the system, which has been gradually 

 falling into disrepute, was favorably received by the exhibiters, who 

 are always — excepting, of course, the recipients of medals and 

 diplomas — opposed to juries' reports, which they regard as more 

 or less superficial and prejudiced. More especially will this objec- 

 tion hold good in Paris, where the very small proportion of British 

 jurymen will render it almost impossible for English exhibiters to 

 obtain a fair proportion of recognition in the general struggle of 

 each country's representatives. But if the decision be taken, and 

 we think it will be a wise decision, to follow the example that has 

 been set in England, and abandon all attempts to pronounce on 

 the respective merits of exhibiters, the present exhibition offers a 

 splendid opportunity for a new departure in official recompense. 

 The idea has been, we believe, submitted to M. Berger by a mem- 

 ber of the British committee, and is receiving due attention. It is 

 that awards, in the form of medals or diplomas, should be given to 

 those men whose names are famous in industry and science, and 

 whose works have been so distinguished that the fruits they have 

 borne appear in all parts of the exhibition, though the distinguished 



workers themselves take no part in it. The number is limited, and 

 the list would not be difficult to prepare, for the names of such 

 men are familiar to all the world. Pasteur, Chevreuil, Dumas, 

 Gramme, Eiffel, De Lesseps. Bessemer, Wylde, Swan, Armstrong, 

 Edison, Bell, Alvan Clarke, are conspicuous examples of those 

 whose labors have advanced civilization in all its branches. So, 

 too, those societies all over the world, whose mission it has been 

 successfully to promote industry and science, could be appro- 

 priately recognized ; for, without their help and co-operation in the 

 general cause of advancement, the Paris Exhibition of 1889 would 

 have fallen miserably short of its present measure of success. 



— Bradsireet's states that a company has been formed under 

 the laws of New York State to develop large deposits of ozokerite, 

 a natural paraffine wax existing in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah 

 Territory, about 113 miles east of Salt Lake City. These mines- 

 are said to contain the only deposits of this mineral known to exist, 

 outside of Galicia, in Austria, whence the entire world's supply of 

 this product has until recently been obtained. The Austrian mines 

 are said to yield a product inferior in quality to that discovered in 

 Utah. The uses of this mineral are constantly enlarging, and in 

 this country alone the consumption amounts to 500 tons yearly^ 

 The chief uses of the mineral in its crude state are in the manu- 

 facture of waxed paper, in the lining of wooden vessels, in varnish 

 and blacking manufacture, and in the insulating of electrical wires. 

 The American product is said to differ from the Austrian article in 

 that it does not need refining, but comes direct from the mine 

 ready to be melted and applied, while the Austrian product must 

 be refined in order to be applied to its numerous uses. When re- 

 fined, this mineral is used in the adulteration of beeswax and as a. 

 substitute for that article in candle-making, the manufacture of 

 matches and dolls, and in the making of heavy lubricants. In its 

 natural state it is found in veins varying from ten to twelve inches 

 thick, and varies in color from a light yellow to brown and black. 

 Baryslaw, in Galicia, a town of 12,000 inhabi'^ants, is dependent 

 entirely upon the mining of this product for its existence. The 

 price of refined ozokerite, commercially known as " ceresin," 

 ranges from 20 cents per pound for chemically pure white, down 

 to 6 cents per pound for crude black of a poor quality. The com- 

 pany proposes to mine 1,500 tons of the wax yearly, and pay 7 per 

 cent on a capital stock of 11,250,000. The first shipment from the 

 American mines arrived in New York in January this year, and at- 

 tracted considerable comment. 



— In its forecast of the weather for April on the Atlantic, the 

 United States Hydrographic Office states that westerly winds, of 

 less force, however, than during March, will prevail over the trans- 

 atlantic steamship routes east of the 60th meridian : west of that 

 meridian, and along the Atlantic coast of the United States, the 

 winds will be variable. Gales may be expected about once a week 

 north of the 32d parallel. But few northers will be felt on the 

 Gulf, and those that do occur will be of less duration than earlier 

 in the season. Icebergs and field-ice may be encountered between 

 40° and 50* west, and as far south as 41° north ; fields may also 

 be met with inshore as far west as the 65th meridian. Considera- 

 ble fog will be experienced off the Grand Banks and the coast of 

 the United States as far south as Hatteras. The north-east trades, 

 having reached their southernmost point during March, will this 

 month begin to extend farther north. 



— The alleged resistance offered by American grape-vines to the 

 ravages of the phylloxera has recommended those vines to wine- 

 growers of Europe, where the pest has made its presence felt. 

 Much uncertainty has existed among the growers as to the particu- 

 lar variety best adapted to resisting the insect ravages, and some 

 disagreement has also been noted between those who favored 

 grafting American cuttings on French vines and those who pro- 

 posed to replace the French by the American article entirely by 

 planting the latter in the place of the former. Dr. Geza Von Hor- 

 vath, of the Hungarian experimental station, who has been study- 

 ing the subject for seven years past, has published in detail the 

 results of his experiments, recently referred to in Bradsireet's^ 

 There is but one American variety, and that the Viiis ro/undifolia, 

 or Scuppernong, that will successfully resist any and all attempts 

 of the pest upon its roots. Unfortunately the European growers 



