Scientific

Scientific.

   Sir John Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, cooked a beefsteak and roasted eggs by merely them in the sun, in a box covered with a glass lid!

    Tarred ropes, hawsers and the like have twenty-five percent, Iess strength than white ropes. This in consequence of the injury the the fibres receive from the high temperature of the tar, 290 degrees. 

   Pure or absolute alcohol may be obtained by distilling commercial rectified spirits of wine in contact with some material having a powerful attraction for water, such as dried carbonate of potash or quick-lime. 

   The ponderable ratio, or comparative weight, between any two bodies, represents by how much one of them is heavier than the other, or lighter than the other, and the amount of gravity specific to each. 

   Unlike the alkalies, potash, soda and ammonia, which are readily and largely soluble in water, lime is very insoluble in this fluid; one part by weight of lime requires no no less than seven hundred and fifty parts of water at 60  degrees for its solution.

  If charcoal in the powder be stitched into a piece of silk and worn before the mouth as a respirator, it will say to all poisonous gases that come to the mouth with the air, "I have taken this post to defend the lungs, and I arrest you on a charge of murderous intention." A new substance, named "Virginia," has been extracted from the residues of petroleum alter distillation, by Prof. Sonnenschein. It is fatty, and nearly transparent. When heated it gives a blue fluorescence. It melts at 47 deg. Centigrade, and is partially soluble in ether. 

   At the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851 the local committee of Dacca, in India, gave notice that they Would award prizes for the best and finest piece of muslin that could be woven in time for the Exhibition. The piece which received the first prize was ten yards long and one yard rule, weighing only 3 oz. dwt., and could be passed through a very small ring.

    The most dangerous part of the painter's trade is "flatting"; white lead, turpentine and closely-heated rooms generate colic. The remedy is sulphuric acid, cleanliness, tubs of fresh water, and fresh air; and, as an antidote, the more frequent use of white zinc or zinc load. In the manufacture of lucifer matches, heated or allotropic phosphorus is said to be not so dangerous to the jawbones as ordinary phosphorus.