D.
To a common 3 gallon pail of whitewash, add 1 pint of cheap molasses and 1 pint of white table salt. The best store lime should be selected and boiling water used in slaking it. It should be frequently stirred as you put it on. Two thin coats will be sufficient to cover the weatherboards of out-buildings. It will not wash or scale off like common whitewash and is beautifully white. For other colours mix ochres of various kinds.
Air Jacket.—Mr. Charles Kendal lately made an experiment on the Thames, of the efficacy of his jacket, or Life-preserver, which completely succeeded. He went from the southwark Bridge through London Bridge with great ease and on to the London Docks in 20 minutes, walking upright in the water accompanied by his man all the way.
A new and cheap conductor of lightning and fluid.—Mr. Capostolle, Professor of Chemistry in the departments of the Somme, affirms that a rope of straw supplies the place of the expensive metal conductors. The experiments, which he has made in the presence of many learned men and which have been repeated by them, confirms as he says that the lightning enters a rope of straw placed in its way and passes through it into the ground so gently that the hand of a person holding the rope at the time does not perceive it. Mr. Capostolle brings the following proof of this assertion. It is well known says he that a severe shock is received by a person who immediately touches the Leyden vial. But if a person takes a rope of straw, only seven or eight inches long, in his hand, and touches, with the end of this rope a Leyden vial, so strongly charged that an ox might be killed by it, he will neither see a spark, or feel the slightest shock. According to Mr. Capostolle's opinion, such conductor made of straw, which would not cost alone three francs, would be able to protect an extent of sixty acres of ground from hail; and if the houses and fields were protected in this manner, neither hail nor lightning could do any damage to them.
Economy of Nature.—In the sunshine vegetables decompose the carbonic acid gas of the atmosphere, the carbon of which is absorbed, and becomes a part of their organized matter, but the oxygen gas, the other constituent is given off; thus the economy of vegetation is made subservient to the general order of the system of nature. Again, Carbonic acid gas is formed in the respiration of animals, and as yet no process is known in nature by which it can be consumed, except vegetation. Animals thus produce a substance which appears to be a necessary food for vegetables;—vegetables evolve a principle necessary to the existence of animals: the two kingdoms seem to be thus connected together in the exercise of their functions, and, to a certain extent, made to depend upon each other for their existence.
Legible Writing.—The Grand Duke of Baden has issued an ordinance, enjoining all public functionaries in his dominions, who sign their names in an illegible manner, through affectation, to write them in future so that they can be read, under the pain of having any document illegibly signed, thrown back on their hands.
While Mr. Samuel Chandler was boring for salt near Zanesville, Ohio, he found a metallic substance six feet three inches thick, which being analysed, was found to be silver, nearly as pure as the common coin. This singular account is attested in the National Intelligencer by a member of Congress.
Square Mile.—It may be thought wonderful that the whole population of this country could stand on considerably less than a square mile. Allowing six men to a square yard, the mile would accommodate eighteen millions five hundred and eighty five thousand six hundred men!
Latitude of Trees in Sweden.—From the researches made in Sweden on the different kinds of wood indigenous to the country, it has been ascertained that the birch reaches the farthest north, growing beyond the 70th degree; the pine reaches to the 69th; the fir tree to the 68th; the ozier, willow, aspen and quince, to the 66th; the cherry and apple tree to the 63d; the oak to the 60th; and the beech to the 57th; while the lime tree, ash, elm, poplar and walnut, are only to be found in Scavia.
[Lond. Journ. of Science.