1^2 The W'est America?! Scientist. 



apparent cause, and a piece of the glass struck Davy in the corner 

 of the right eye, disabhng him from further immediate experiments. 

 In July, 1813, Davy set about finding out what was the matter 

 with cnloride of nitrogen, and attempted an analysis by mercury. 

 The stuff went off again as usual, but Davy had protected his eyes 

 with a thick plate of glass, and he was wounded only in the head 

 and hands. Faraday was an assistant to Davy at this time. He 

 was holding a small tube containing a few grains of the chloride 

 between his thumb and finger, when a sudden and wholly unpro- 

 voked explosion occurred, stunning him and badly tearing his 

 hand. 



Pliny, the elder, lost his life by venturing near Vesuvius to in- 

 vestigate the interesting phenomena of the eruption of August, 

 A. D., 79. He was suffocated by the sulphurous fumes. Leh- 

 man, professor of chemistry, at the Imperial Museum of St. Peters- 

 burg, was killed in 1767 by inhalation of fumes from a strongly- 

 heated arsenical mixture. Berthollet proposed in 1788, to subsd- 

 tute the chloride of potassium for the nitrate in the manufacture of 

 gunpowder, and while experimenting at Essoune, produced a ter- 

 rible explosion that killed the director of the government works 

 and a young lady. Berthollet and Lavoisier were both present, 

 but escaped injury. Lavoisier was guillotined in 1794. Pelletier, 

 the elder, made a special study of combining phosphorus and 

 chlorine with the metals, and the breathing ot the vapors induced 

 consumption, of which he died. In 1808, Barruel rubbed fulmin- 

 ating mercury in an agate mortar and had a portion of his hand 

 blown off. The next year Figuier put sixty grains of the same 

 stuff in a glass-stoppered bottle, and took it into the lecture room 

 at Montpelier. When he removed the stopper, the friction caused 

 an explosion that destroyed one of the chemist's eyes. Thenard 

 was lecturing in 1825, to the chemistry class of the Polytechnic 

 School in Paris, and moistened his throat with two mouthfuls of 

 corrosive sublimate instead of sweetened water. ''Gentlemen," 

 he said, ''I have poisoned myself; what I have taken is corrosive 

 sublimate, and the remedy is white of eggs. Bring me some 

 eggs." The students raided all the stores and kitchens in the 

 neighborhood, and the professor was supplied with eggs enough 

 to save his life. — N. Y. Tribune. 



An industrial journal gives the following valuable information * 

 A one-inch shaft running one hundred revolutions per minute will 

 transmit one horse-power; a one-inch shaft will stand the force of 

 fifty pounds at the end of a crank one foot long. A one-inch belt 

 running eight hundred feet per minute will transmit one horse- 

 power. A one-inch wrought iron rod will support seven thousand 

 pounds, and a two-inch rod four times as much. 



