A New Sugar Process.
The details of the process vary with quality of beets. To a vat containing the secondary products to be treated are added calculated quantities of diluted hydrochloric acid and milk of lime at 25° B. The mass is heated to the boiling point by a steam coil. In a separate vat the product is diluted with water at 75° C. to 23° B., and subsequently run through Puvrez filtering bags. The filtrate is clear in color, and is received in a measuring tank, from which it is run into the diffusion battery. In the latter but few changes are necessary. It is said that by this method an additional 1 per cent sugar is extracted from the beet, and the white sugar obtained can be at once placed upon the market.
There were exported last season from Prince Edward Island 91,000 cases of lobsters.
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS.
When, in 1752, Franklin succeeded, through a kite sent up into a storm cloud, in obtaining an electric spark at the extremity of the cord, which had been made a conductor through the rain, it was no longer possible to doubt that lightning was but an immense electric discharge between two clouds, or a discharge between a cloud and the earth. This discovery was of great importance, since it connected with the laws of physics certain phenomena which, until then, had passed for marvelous, and in which nothing but supernatural and mysterious manifestations were seen.
The aurora borealis, which is more difficult to understand, and which necessitates more extended scientific notions, has remained much longer unexplained. This enigmatic phenomenon was especially striking to the imagination of ancient peoples. It was regarded as an omen of inauspicious events, and the historians who describe it affirm that, at times, armies have been seen passing through the bloody heavens, and that the clash of arms has been heard.
It is now known that the aurora borealis has the same origin as lightning, that it is one of the visible manifestations of atmospheric electricity, and that it is due to slow movements of that fluid, while lightning is the result of violent motions. The effects of the aurora and of the thunderbolt are absolutely different; but between them there is an intermediary that connects them, and this is heat lightning.
These elementary notions are now the property of science; but the study of the aurora has hitherto been only partially outlined. Travelers and physicists have, indeed, given numerous descriptions, but it has remained to find the bonds that unite these so important phenomena in the economy of the globe, to study the causes that set them in action, to observe the correlations that they may offer, and to discuss theories. This is a labor that Mr. S. Lemstrom has been engaged in for several years, and we now propose to analyze the results published by this great Finnish physicist.