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JUN Cambridge Mass ture the commerce of: the Atlan- nw e << = ING AND SCIENCE.. VOL..V. NO 22. CLEVELAND, O. JUNE 2 1883. $2.00 Per ANNUM SiveLe Copies 6 Cents. T. S. FAXTON AND ENTERPRISE. The cut representing the steamer ‘I’. S. Faxton is from the Nautical Gazette. The contrast between the Faxton and the steam- boat of seventy years ago is very great. The Enterprise was the tirst stern-wheel boat ever built. Ske was built at Bridge- port, opposite Brownsville, Pa., in 1814, She made a trip to New Orleans, and was the firat boat that ever came up the Ohio river, mak- ing the run from New Orleans to Pittsburgh in forty-four dave. Ths Marine Journal says her wheel was in a recess at the stern or sterne, as the hull ran aft past the wheel on either side, Jeaving about four feet of ‘deck on each side of the wheel. | ‘I'radi- tion says the engine was an osci- lating one,and was built by Will- iam. French, of Brownsville, Pa. —j—— UNSINKABLE SHIPS. An exchange writer says: “Much has deen written in re- ard to making ships unsinkable ; Bi the subject of so packing goods as to make them impervious to water, has not been a subject for discussion. ae I propose to say something on both pointe, in the hope of con- tributing material that. will tend to save life and property. In or- der to carry out fully my plans, I must assume that in the near fu- tic,.between Europe and the Uni- ted States and Canada, will be donz by two and perhaps three classes of steamers. First, the ship devoted exclu- sively to first-class goods and first class passengers. Coming to the eases; or, [ should say, in wooden boxes carefully soldered. At first sight it would seem that this was costly, but this was nor 80, for the reason that the copper paid no duty and was worth more than it cost. Tassume that if we can afford to import. Bordeaux wine, costing trom $60 to $100 a cask, we certainly can afford to put goods of {rom two to ten times those values in the sane sort of packages. [ assume that in- surers would be glad to take risks free from claims of partial loss on goods packeil as [ suggest for very. much Jess than when packed as is now the custom, and subject to a claim for partial loss, ‘his saving to the year; time will be required to make the change; manufactories of ,barrels of wood and of paper would have to be vastly in- creased. > ______ BA'TTLES IN THE AIR. ‘The tornadoes that have swept away coun- try houses and whole villages, and killed scores of people possess some peculiar fea- tures which render them peculiarly worthy of attention. ‘The tirst thing noteworthy is their number and the great extent of terri- tory they cover. A writer in the Hamilton ‘Times speaks of them asa nest of atmos- pheric eddies forming allover our country, tion of tornadoes along the line of meeting. Another fact of special interest is the won- derful electrical discharges which accompa- nied’ the tornadoes. Electricity is always strongly developed during such storms, but in this case the lightning seems to have been incessant, reminding one of accounts ot thunder storms in the tropics. Books and newspapers were read and letters written by the almost unceasing illumination of the clouds, ‘There seems to be no means within human reach to cope with these powers of the air. A tornado cannot be arrested in its course. The only thing to do is to get out of its way. But at. present there is not even any means of predicting their coming. ‘lhe Signal Service can only deal with ordinary storms that sweep in an almost unvary- ing course clear across the conti- nent. The telegraph can give warning of the approach of such astorm, but tornadoes spring in to being and rush. away cn their career of destruction in the most unexpected manner. Still, if the theories of the meteorologists are correct, und tornadoes are gener- ally formed where opposing cur- rents meet, and as otf-shoots of amair storm, it should be possi- ble to obtain some warning even though short. of the times and places where these frightful bat- tles in the air are likely to te fought, , ——0——_ THE COLOR OF WATER. It is well-known that: the water of different lakes and rivers differs in color. ‘I'he Mediterranean sea is indigo blue, the ocean sky blue, Lake Geneva is azure, while the westward, this class will not car- ry, asarule, any goods that will not of themselves float; by this I mean no railroad metals, no boxes Lake of the Four Forest Cantons _and Lake Constance in Switzer- land, as well as the river Rhine, are chromo green, and Kloen- of tin, no soda ash, in short, no graff goods. ; Supposing this ship to be built of steel, and to be divided into at least ten compartments on two decke, exclusive of those occupied by the motive power and the tuel; supposing that the two lower decks are to be of metal and the hatches secured 30 as to be water tight like the manhole in a boiler, the ship would have twenty wa- thaler lake is grass green. Tyn- tertight cargo spaces. [ assume that the upper of these decks would be near the mean or iver- age water-line, and that every compartment have means to pump in air and to pump out wa- ter. Such a ship, if laden with an ordinary cargo, could not very well sink even if the space devot- ed to the fuel and to the motive power should be fractured, leay- ing the working of the pumping gear intact. Now supposing that all the goods in the twenty compart- ments be packed in water-tight bales, boxes or casks, and that every package would float if lett to itself. and supposing that ev- ery one of the compartments should have a fracture in it. the ship could not sink even if the means for pumping in air and pumping out water could not be availed of, ‘The amount of water which could under such jmprob- able conditions be found in the cargo spaces would at the worst only bring the ship down a foot or two; but. suppose the system which [ advocate should be com- pletely arranged, and all goods packed in square or nearly square boxes or bales, the amount of water coming in would be very much less than if the goods were packed in casks. Still I should, as « general rule, pre- fer casks, because they would have nearly their original value when unpacked, where- as bales and boxes would not. Casks would be available tor return goods, In the days of the East India Compnny, all the goods sent to China were in water- tight bales, and valuable goods were sent to the Philippine Islands packed in copper merchant would pay for the better packing ten times over. It would be easy to cite statistics to show that the large amount of valuable goods coming from Europe to this country and to other countries would warrant packing in water tight packages. ‘The theory of water- tight packages is well illustrated in’ China, where every chest of tea is lined with lead; the object being to preserve the flavor of the precious herb, but not one chest in ten is really tight; raw silk and silk piece goods are packed in bales and boxes quite pervious to water. It is not expected that mv suggestions jand darting out to devastate the country in tornadoes, cutting clean swathes many miles long and only a few hundred yards wide. Some general cause must of course have been at work to produce the extraordinary treteorological conditions favorable for the simultaneous development of these storms, so widely separated, and yet so similar in their character and effects. ‘This cause is found in the confiict between the cold storm eurrent which was at the time sweeping and a less extenstve but powerful warm cur- rent advancing from the gulf. Where these currents met there was a sort cf struggle for can be carried out in a single day or a single the mastery, which resulted in the forma- across the whole country from the westward | | dall thought that the blue color of water had a similar cause as the blue color in the air, being blue by reflected light, and red by transmitted light. W. Spring has recently communieated to the Belgiun Academy the results of his investigations upon the eclor of water, He proved that perfectly pure water in a tube ten metres long had a distinctly blue color while it ought, according to Tyn- dall, to look red, Spring also showed that water in which car- bonate of lime, silica, clay, and salts were suspended in nr fine stale of division offered a resist. ance to the passage of light’ that Was not inconsiderable, Since the red and violet light of the spectrum are much more feeble than the yellow, the foriwrer will be completely absoi bed, while the latter passes through, produc. ing with the blue ot the water it- self, different shades ot green 0—_ WATER-GAS AS FUEL FOR STEAMERS, é A test is about to be made in England of the use of w ater-gag as fuel for steamships. The Mau- ritius Steamship Line has builta steamship called the Huron ot 1,060 tons burden and provided it with the apparatus invented by Dr. C. Holland for making water. gas. Dr. Holland’é process has been tested on the Long, Island and Erie railways but this is the first time that it, or any similar process has been applied toa steamship, The Huron is to ply between London and the islands of Mauritius and Madagascar, She has teen fitted out with six furnaces pre ly like those placed by Dr. Holland in thejexperimental locomo- tive named after him on the Erie road, and sanguine believers in the process have cal- culated that the saving in the one item of fuel will be $40 000 on each voyage to Man- ritius and return. Another English steam- ship Co. has suMecient confidence in the Hol- land fuel to begin the construction of a first class vessel without any coal bunkers,