cience 



VOL. IT. No. 4. 



ALBION, N, Y., FEBRUARY 44, ]896. 



Weekly, $1.00 a Year 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



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Infusorial Earth and its Use: 



It is one of the paradoxes of Na- 

 ture that the smallest creatures 

 contribute most to the structure of 

 the earth. The higher forms of 

 life are barely traceable in the 

 rocky strata; the lowest make up 

 the bulk of vast formations, thous- 

 ands of miles in area, thousands of 

 feet in depth. The gigantic labors 

 of the minute but multitudinous 

 coral polyps are proverbial: but 

 these are surpassed by the remains 

 of still more microscopic creatures 

 which swarm in all waters, arctic as 

 well as tropical, fresh as well as 

 salt, and whose cast-off shells fall 

 like a ceaseless rain cf solid matter 

 on every part of the ocean's bed, 

 on the beds of every inland, sea 

 and lake, every river, and marsh, 

 and roadside pool. And minute 

 though they be, the bulk of matter 

 they contribute to the earth's strata 

 every year is quite incalculable. 

 The celebrated microscopist Ehren- 

 berg, the first to realize their im- 

 portance, estimated that in the sin- 

 gle harbor of Wismar, in the Baltic 

 Sea, as much as eighteen thousand 

 cubic feet of these silicious organ- 

 isms accumulated annually. The 

 deep sea explorers of the Challen 

 ger expedition found them every- 

 where above the depth of two 

 thousand fathoms; and below that, 

 their insoluble remnants made up 

 thousands of square units of "red 

 clay" deposits, apparently the stuff 

 from which the azoic bases of the 

 continents were formed. The 

 limestones and chalks derived from 

 calcareous infusoria are still more 

 abundant and important; and by 



no means insignificant are the un- 

 consolidated silicious strata of 

 modern origin, to which the name 

 infusorial earth has been applied. 

 The stratum at Bilin in Bohemia, 

 in which Ehrenberg found the 

 enormous number of forty thousand 

 millions of individuals to the square 

 inch, is eighteen feet thick, and ex- 

 tends over a large area. At Lun- 

 enberg is another deposit, nearly 

 twenty-eight feet thick; and less 

 important strata are found in other 

 parts of Germany and throughout 

 Europe. In Lapland and Sweden 

 it constitutes the well known 

 "mountain meal," used to swell 

 the bulk of certain foods. Many 

 deposits of considerable magnitude 

 are known in England, and the 

 Irish beds are celebrated, especi- 

 ally those of the county of Down. 

 Africa for a long time monopolized 

 the supply for use in the arts, and 

 furnished the familiar name Tripoli. 

 The material is now abundantly 

 supplied by other parts of the Afri- 

 can continent, by Asia, Australia, 

 New Zealand, South America, our 

 own country — indeed every part of 

 the world. In South America, the 

 natives count it in some parts an 

 essential portion of their diet, us- 

 ing it as food mixed with fat. 

 Along the Amazon, beds of this 

 useful earth are numerous; and 

 since the organisms which produce 

 it are universally distributed, the 

 deposits of it will doubtless be 

 found more or less abundant every- 

 where when sought for. Such at 

 any rate appears to be the case in 

 this country. The extensive de- 

 posit at Drakeville, N. J., which 

 so conveniently supplies a demand 

 originally met by material import- 

 ed from Germany, for the manu- 

 facture of dynamite, is a case in 

 point. Perhaps the most extensive 

 deposit in this country is the one 

 underlying the city of Richmond, 

 Va., a deposit which Professor 

 Rogers traced from a point on 

 Chespeake Bay, in Maryland, to 

 beyond Petersburg, Va.. where it 

 is thirty feet thick. Beds of simi- 

 lar character have been found in 

 California, Oregon and elsewhere 

 on the Pacific Coast; and smaller 

 deposits occur at West Point, at 

 Wrentham and Andover, Mass., 

 and in Connecticut and Rhode Is- 

 land. 



Infusorial earth, or tripoli. is 

 best known as a polishing powder 

 for gold, silver, etc., for which pur- 

 pose it has no rival. Mention has 



already been made of its use in the 

 manufacture of blasting powders, 

 in which it serves the useful 

 purpose of holding the explosive 

 nitroglycerin. But these will ulti- 

 mately be counted among the least 

 of its uses. Already it plays an 

 important part in the manufacture 

 cements and artificial stones, espec- 

 ially in Ransome's process. Com- 

 bined with carbonate of magnesia, 

 it forms the excellent cement 

 known in Germany as albolite. 

 With borate of lime, it forms a val- 

 uable glazing for furnaces, pottery, 

 etc., and is found very useful as an 

 enamel for iron and slate. Fused 

 with borate of magnesia, it forms a 

 beautiful and durable porcelain 

 ■which can be cast and even blown 

 like glass. A multitude of minor 

 uses have been suggested, and 

 many more will no doubt follow as 

 our artisans become acquainted 

 with its properties. Its lightness, 

 indestructability by fire, and slow- 

 ness of heat conduction are quali- 

 ties of very great value. Bricks of 

 it, with a little clay, are nearly as 

 strong as common bricks, yet so 

 light as to float on water. At the 

 same time they are infusible, and 

 such poor conductors of heat that 

 they may be held at one end while 

 the other is heated to redness. As 

 an experiment, an Italian engineer 

 constructed the powder magazine of 

 a wooden vessel with such bricks, 

 and when set on fire the vessel 

 burned till she sank, without ex- 

 ploding the powder. The lightness 

 of such fireproof bricks makes them 

 specially valuable for such uses. 

 They have also been used to ad- 

 vantage in the construction of re- 

 verberatory furnaces, pyrometers, 

 etc. The hcat-iesisting quality of 

 infusorial earth makes it not less 

 useful as a protection to ice bins, 

 ale cellars, etc., and as a lining for 

 fireproof safes and the like, for 

 which purposes it is rivaled only 

 by asbestos. Agriculture furnishes 

 another promising field for the use 

 of inf usorial earth. Professor Wil- 

 son, who has the honor of discov- 

 ering the use made of this form of 

 silica by plants, pronounces the ap- 

 plication of it to fertilizing pur- 

 poses the most important adapta- 

 tion of matter for the reproduction 

 of vegetation that has even been 

 discovered. There can be no'ques- 

 tion of the importance of such as- 

 similable silica to soils like those 

 of Bermuda, where the ' silicious 

 element is nearly if not entirely 

 wanting. — Scientific A merican. 



