2o6 



SCIENCE. 



[^OL. XIX. No 47( 



be increased in those districts where the grower himself 

 engaged in producing the oil from the seed. The substance 

 i-emaining from the oil manufacture, or sunflower cakes, be- 

 ing used as cattle food, is also a valuable product. These 

 cakes, however, have a comparatively small demand in 

 Russia, but are largely exported to foreign countries, princi- 

 pally to Germany and England. The government of Sai'a- 

 tov, for instance, exports about 2,000,000 pounds of sunflower 

 cakes to different countries, where a further quantity of oil 

 is extracted from them before being used for cattle food. 

 The sunflower shells being used for heating purposes, form 

 an article of trade in several districts. The seed-cups are 

 not wasted, but are used as food for sheep. The peasants in 

 the government of Tambov are increasing the cultivation of 

 the sunflower owing to the following reasons. There is a 

 steadily increasing demand at home and abroad for the seed, 

 thus making the industry a profitable one, especially as 

 Eussia is the chief source of supply. As above mentioned, 

 the sunflower is cultivated principally for the oil. If the 

 cultivation is made with care, and if proper precautions are 

 taken in drying, cleaning, and pressing, sunflower oil is equal 

 to the French table oil in color, flavor, and taste. At first 

 sunflower oil did not meet with public favor in Eussia, but 

 later on, owing to its good qualities and cheapness, it took 

 the place of the oil of poppy seed ; but for a long time hemp- 

 seed oil competed with it, owing to the fact that the lower 

 classes, who for many years had used the hemp-seed oil in 

 the preparation of various dishes, and who had learnt to 

 relish it, were not disposed to give it up. Now, however, 

 public opinion has changed, and sunflower oil is preferred 

 by the masses to all other table oils in Eussia. The process 

 of oil-making is as follows. The seed being brought to the 

 oil mill, is thoroughly cleaned and sorted. They are passed 

 under millstones, specially prepared for the purpose, in order 

 to release the seed from the shells. After this the seed is 

 properly dusted and put under a press, and, later on, into a 

 mixer, where the seed is turned into a compact mass very 

 much like paste, which passes into vessels heated by steam. 

 From these vessels the paste is taken out and wrapped in a 

 thin web, made of camel hair, and put under a press, by 

 which the oil is squeezed out and conducted by pipes into 

 tanks. The total number of oil mills in Eussia was, accord- 

 ang to the last account, 104. From this number 85 were ap- 

 plied solely to obtaining sunflower oil. In 24 of these mills 

 steam is used, and in others only manual power. The 

 largest mill is at Saratov, and it produces 1,500,000 pounds 

 of oil annually. There are two kinds of oil obtained from 

 the sunflower seeds. The better kind is sweet, and more ex- 

 pensive, the inferior having a bitter taste. The difference 

 in price of these two qualities is about one halfpenny a 

 pound. The oil remaining from the oil production or the 

 waste, and not used as food, is applied exclusively to certain 

 industries. The sunflower stalks, gathered from the fields, 

 and dried in piles, have entirely replaced firewood ; in fact, 

 these stalks are preferred even to pine-wood, producing a 

 quick and hot-flame fire. About 2,000 pounds of such fire- 

 wood are gathered from an acre of land, thus adding a great 

 boon to a district where wood is scarce. Sunflower shells 

 are also used for heating purposes, not only in private 

 houses, but in large factories as well. They are burned in 

 ovens specially prepared for their consumption. The ashes 

 of the sunflower contain a large percentage of potassium. 

 The experiments of Hermbstedt have proved that 1,000 

 .pounds of dried stalks yield 57.2 pounds of ash; and from 

 1.000 pounds of ash are obtained 349 pounds of the best 



potassium. As a food for cattle, sunflower cakes are looked 

 upon as the best in Eussia; they are considered better even 

 than hemp or rape-seed cakes. According to chemical 

 analyses, the sunflower cakes from the Government of Sara- 

 tov contain: Azotic substances, 42.31 percent; oil, 14.7 i)er 

 cent, and ashes, 5.12 per cent. The dried seed-cups, if 

 ground, are used in many districts as food for cattle, and 

 particularly for sheep, with great success. 



FLEXIBLE TUBING.' 



At a meeting of the London Society of Arts, held on Wed- 

 nesday evening, March 23, Mr. G. R. Eedgrave gave an in- 

 teresting lecture upon the subject of flexible tubing. After 

 a passing reference to rubber tubing, leather hose, and simi- 

 lar ancient forms of this tubing, he proceeded to describe the 

 flexible metallic tubes which had been invented by Mr. E. 

 Levavassour. This gentleman is, it appears, a jeweller, and 

 many years ago invented necklaces and bracelets made out of 

 tubes produced by coiling together two strips of gold and silver. 

 One of these strips had a channel section, and the other, of 

 a semicircular section, served to unite adjacent coils of the 

 channel section together, and form a complete tube. About 

 six years ago the idea occurred to him that flexible tubes 

 could be formed on the same principle out of strips of metal, 

 the tightness of the joints being secured by a strip of rubber. 

 Many different forms of section for the strip were tried, the 

 first being a sort of double channel section with which a 

 great amount of flexibility was secured, but the heavy strain 

 thrown on the rubber caused it to wear rapidly. In a later 

 form the strip used was somewhat of the shape of a figure 

 8, which gave a more perfect interlock, so that the disrup- 

 tion of the tube could only be effected by the strips splitting 

 under the strain. The rubber, too, was better protected and 

 there was less chance of its working out. But this tube was 

 less flexible than its predecessor, and suffered from the same 

 defect in that the tightness of the joint depended upon a 

 perishable material. Other forms of strips were tried in 

 succession, and linally one has been arrived at in which a 

 perfectly tight joint is secured without the use of any pack- 

 ing whatever, metallic surfaces only being in contact. The 

 tubes thus formed are found to be tight under both high and 

 low pressures, the form of the strip being such that the 

 greater the pressure the tighter the joint. These tubes have 

 been successfully used for conveying petroleum oil gas at a 

 pressure of 300 pounds per square inch, and a small tube 

 :J-inch in diameter formed out of a strip 14 millimetres wide 

 and .6 of a millimetre thick, only yielded at a pressure of 2,000 

 pounds per square inch. The tubes, moreover, will stand a 

 partial vacuum. Their flexibility is such that a -j^jj-inch 

 tube can be bent to a radius of 4 inches, and a one-inch tube 

 to one of 6 inches. The tubes, moreover, can be trodden on 

 with impunity, and would almost stand a cart being driven 

 over them, a load of 18 hundred-weight on one inch of 

 bearing surface being required to compress a 1 inch tube to 

 an oval section. The difficulties of manufacture have been 

 considerable, long flexible strips of a soft and uniform metal 

 being required. Thus the finch tubes are made out of a 

 strip 14 millimetres wide and .6 of a millimetre thick. At pres- 

 ent such strips cannot be obtained of a greater length than 

 6,000 feet to 7,000 feet, and as 10 feet of strip are required 

 for each 1 foot length of tube, the greatest continuous length 

 that can be produced at the present time is limited, but it is 

 thought that by means of electric welding this difficulty will 

 ' From EngiueeriQg. 



