378 Scientific Intelligence. — Geology. 



24. To render Sandstone and other porous materials impervious 

 to Water. — The sandstone is first heated to a temperature of about 

 400 Fahrenheit, and then plunged into coal tar, heated to about the 

 same temperature, and allowed to remain in it for about eight hours. 

 In this way a mass is obtained so solid, that it is scarcely possible to 

 break it with a hammer. Bricks and tiles require only four hours 

 steeping, at a temperature of about 230° Fahrenheit. (Acid cisterns 

 and refrigerators of Yorkshire sandstone, and many other applica- 

 tions of that material, have been boiled, in this way, in tar, since 

 several years, in many of the chemical factories of Great Britain, and 

 with the best results.) — (Forster's Bauzeitung, 1853, p. 35. 

 The Dublin Monthly Journal of Industrial Progress. No. 11, 

 p. 55.) 



25. Employment of Quick Lime in High Furnaces, instead of 

 Limestone, by C. Montefior Levi, and Dr Emil Schmidt. — From 

 experiments made at the iron-works of Ougree near Liege, they 

 found that to produce 100 kilogrammes of pig-iron, the average con- 

 sumption of coke for six months of 28 days, when limestone was used, 

 was 160 J kilogrammes; whilst with burned lime the consumption was 

 only 146^ kilogrammes ; being a saving of 8*88 per cent. The ave- 

 rage production for 28 days with limestone was 461,000 kilogrammes, 

 and with burned lime, 735,000, or an increase of 24'3 per cent. 

 Corresponding results were obtained with another furnace, worked 

 for three months with limestone, and three with burned lime. The 

 average coke consumed per 100 kilogrammes with the former being 

 162, and with the latter 147i kilogrammes ; the production of iron 

 per month being on an average 469,000 with limestone, and 563,000 

 kilogrammes with lime. The furnaces at Ougree have now been work- 

 ing 3£ years with lime, with the same result ; the saving per year, 

 notwithstanding the cost of burning the lime, being 30,000 francs 

 per furnace. The same process has been successfully tried in some 

 parts of Wales, and in England. — {Zeitschr. des Ostr. Ing. Vereins, 

 1852, p. 145.) 



26. Professor Rogers on Earthquake Movements, and the thick- 

 ness of the Earth's Crust. — Professor Rogers is of opinion that the 

 undulatory movement of an earthquake is felt much more sensibly 

 at a point above the earth's surface, than directly upon it. An 

 instance illustrating this had come within his own knowledge. The 

 earthquake which destroyed the principal city of Guadaloupe was 

 felt in the city of New York, but only in the fourth story of a print- 

 ing office. The sound generally precedes the shock, as has been 

 observed in this country. In North America, the undulation is al- 

 ways parallel to the physical features of the continent, making it 

 reasonable to believe, that through a long series of epochs the motion 

 has been in one rather than various directions, as supposed by Elio 

 de Beaumont. There are two movements in earthquakes ; an un- 

 dulatory and a molecular movement. The latter, Professor Rogers 



