Miscellaneous.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 696, 6 October 1909, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

PLANTS THAT MELT SNOW. The Alpine soldanella and other plants, says a correspondent, has been described as "melting- the snow surrounding them." A piece of dead wood, or a tuft of dead grass, does the same thing. The source of the heat in these cases is the sun's rays. These rays pass fairly freely through snow, but when they meet opaqve bodies they are stopped and the radiant heat converted into actual or sensible heat. Anything imbedded in the snow that will stop these heat rays gets warmed and melts the snow surrounding it. As the tissues of the soldanella get heated in this way the flower easily keeps a snow-free space surrounding it. Some of the sun's energy falling- on growing plants is absorbed by the chlorophyl and spent in building up the growing tissues of the plant, but there is plenty of energy for both growing and. heating. An exactly similar effect of the sun's rays —thou'gh at first it may look different —may he seen on the Alps at the edges of the retreating snow on the approach of summer. During sunny weather the snow along the edge's does not lie in contact with the ground, but is supported at a few inches above it at its outer edge. This opening under the snow may extend inwards a foot or more, gradually diminishing in height, and under this icy canopy at some places may be seen crocus and other plants coming into bloom. In this case the melting of the snow is due to the sun's rays penetrating the thin covering of snow at the edge and, falling on the dead herbage underneath, heating it, and it in turn melting the snow over it. thus doing in a wholesale manner what the stem and hell of the soldanella does for itself.

A PALACE OF MIRAGES. There has lately been built in a Paris museum a chamber which goes by the name of the Palace of Mirages. The architect has utilised the extraordinary reflecting- properties of mirrors arranged hcxagonally to produce a perspective effect, which is positively amazing. A real room, hexagonal in shape, is made of six mirrors and six pillars. A man standingin the centre of this chamber sees it surrounded by six other identical in size and shape; these seem to be surrounded by a second ring of twelve, this again by a third ring of eighteen, and so on, theoretically, to infinity. The effect is of a vast perspective of hexagonal apartments, melting away in every direction, and to which there are no limits.

A fantastic effect is produced by illuminating the apartment with 2500 coloured electric lamps, 1800 of which can be lighted at once. The illumination produced in the thirty-six rooms due to the first three reflections is equal to that which would be produced by thirty-six times 1800 lights, 'or 64,200.

The architect has devised a plan by which the aspect of the entire palace can be changed. Each of the six angles of the room contains a rotating drum upon which are mounted back to back three pairs of mirrors, each pair fitting exactly the mirror walls so as to form a corner of the apartment. In the angles of these three pairs of mirrors are mounted pillars, one in Hindoo style, with statues of Brahma, Siva, and Vishnu; one in the style of an Arabian palace, and the third in the form of trees. When the first is turned inward the spectator seems to be standing in the centre of a vast Hindu temple. The drums revolve one-third of the way round, and the spectator is in an Arabian palace. Another third of a revolution takes you into an endless forest.

These six drums are turned by delicate mechanism ; for in order that the effect may be produced it is necessary that the corner mirrors which revolve with the drums shall fit with mathematical accuracy to the stationary mirrors which form the 1 walls .

The effects are produced by the simplest of scenery. The forest grows from six trunks of trees and six branches of leaves, one in each corner, the mirrors doing all the rest. The effect is helped by the ceilinpwhich is also a mirror.

BURIED VOICES. Singers of To-day will be Heard Again a Hundred Years Hence. Buried under the magnificent Opera House, in Paris are the silent voices of the greatest singers living in the world to-day. One hundred years from now these singers will sing for a strange -people—people not yet born, who will be assembled by official decree to hear them. It is not the least remarkable phase of this ingenious enterprise of the French authorities that its originator and the one who is carrying out the plan at his own expense is an American. Alfred Clark, formerly of New York. The idea of preserving by phonpgraphic record the music of the worlds' masters came to him several years ago. and when he spoke of the plan to members of the Government they entered into it with enthusiasm. Two things were necessary in order to give permanency to the undertaking. One was to have the affair under the direction of the Government, and the other was to obtain a. permanent and appropriate place in which to keep the discs that held the mute voices of the singers, or the imprisoned music of famous pianists, violinists, and orchestras. For this part of the plan no place seemed worthier or better than the Opera House, one of the architectural monuments of the world, which has a museum of relics interesting to the student or lover of music. Beneath the Opera House are small winding passages with vaulted ceilings that remind one of the crypt of 1 a cathedral or of catecombs budlt of stone. It was here that the long resting place of voices that have thrilled thousands was chosen. In the foundations of the big 1 building excavations were made and places hollowed out in which the flat discs could rest. The records will be added to from time to time as new artists win fame or new selections are desired. When the urn that contains the records placed there at the inaugural ceremonies is opened a century hence, those who are summoned to listen to the great ones of the past will hear Patti, Melba, Mme. Schumann J Heink. Calve, Tetrazzim, Pol Plancon. Tamagno. Caruso, Scotti, and Kubelik. Greatest care is taken in the preservation of the records. The urn in which each set is placed is hermetically sealed by experts acting under the direction of M. Charles Malherbe." rhe learned archivist of the Opera. It is believed that when the urns are opened the discs will be found unimpaired by their century of silence in the *'ault in the Opera foundations.