This section is from the book "Wrinkles And Recipes, Compiled From The Scientific American", by Park Benjamin. Also available from Amazon: Wrinkles and Recipes, Compiled From The Scientific American.
Boil the scrap-tin with soda lye in presence of litharge.
(1) Iron filings 1000 parts, borax 500, balsam copaiva, or other resinous oil, 50, salammoniac 75. Mix together, heat, and pulverize. Weld at cherry-red. (2) Borax 15 parts, sal-ammoniac 2, cyanide of potassium 2. These constituents are dissolved in water, and the water itself afterward evaporated at a low temperature.
Clean the surface with sand and sulphuric acid, and immerse for an instant in a solution of sulphate of nickel and ammonia 4 parts, in water 40 parts, acidulated with sulphuric acid 1 part. Wash and dry. This takes a bronze color on burnishing.
(1) Verdigris 1 oz., sal-ammoniac 1 oz., lampblack 1/2 oz., water \ pint; mix well in a mortar, and shake before using. Write with a quill. (2) One drachm chloride of platinum dissolved in 1/2 pint water.
Use a mordant of chloride of copper 1 part, nitrate of copper 1, sal-ammoniac 1, dissolved in water 64. Add hydrochloric acid (commercial) 1. This brushed over the zinc sheets gives them a deep black color, turning grayish after drying, in from 12 to 24 hours. A coat of oil-color will adhere to this surface and withstand weather excellently.
This may be done by ignition in an earthen crucible.
Line a thin glass candy-jar inside and outside with tin-foil, such as is used to wrap chewing-tobacco in. Stick the foil, on with mucilage, varnish, or flour paste. A still cheaper plan is simply to fill a glass jar nearly full of water, and place it within another vessel of water, so that the water, both outside and inside, shall be on the same level.
Mr. George W. Blunt says: "Take a piece of board, or any similar material, and describe on it a number of concentric circles. Place this in the sun; over the centre hang a plummet. Observe the shortest shadow from the plummet; the sun will then be on the meridian; draw a line to the centre of the circle, and that will be the true meridian-line. This will do to mark the apparent time, or to correct the compass for variation."
Melt together 1 oz. clean lead and 1 oz. of fine tin in a clean iron ladle; then immediately add 1 oz. bismuth. Skim off the dross, remove the ladle from the-fire, and before it sets add 10 ozs. quicksilver; now stir the whole carefully together, taking care not to breathe over it, as the fumes of mercury are very pernicious. Pour this through an earthen pipe into the glass globe, which turn repeatedly around.
To change Fahrenheit degrees into Centi grade: C.=5(F.-32)/9 Centigrade into Fahrenheit: F. =9C/5+ 32.
Reaumur into Fahrenheit: F.=9 R/4+ 32. Fahrenheit into
Reaumur: R.=4(F.-32)/9• Reaumur into Centigrade: C=5 R/4
Centigrade into Reaumur: R.=4C/5.
 
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