Science & Invention.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 701, 10 November 1909, Page 7

Science & Invention.

Armoured concrete continues to enlarge the field of its application. We understand that the experimental concrete telegraph poles lately erected in Pennsylvannia railroad have proved so successful that the company has decided to extend their use gradually over its western lines.

first-instance of the kind in the historv of the artificial incubation industry that special incubators have been manufactured and shipped to Africa for this purpose.

M. Gaston Bonnier has just told his confreres at the Academy of Sciences that bees, in order to obtain honey, often fly considerable distances, covering- sometimes as much as a mile and a half. M. Bonnier has also, by a series of ingenious experiments, established the fact that they have no sense of odomV nor far-sighted eyes, but that they possess a special sense of direction similar to that of carrier pigeons.

NEW REVOLUTIONARY METHOD OF MAKING PAPER. Professor George B. Frankforter has just discovered what is considered a significant industrial process of making paper. It consists in taking a quantity of waste wood or sawdust, laying it on a steel incline over a furnace and subjecting it to a chemical process of distillation. Carbon, disulphide, or gasoline, is poured over the sawdust, dissolving the turpentine and resin, which pass off as gas into a coil of pipes leading to a tank. The process is similar to the distillation of sugar. Wood' pulp remains free from pitch, and is suitable, it is asserted, for the manufacture of paper. The existing method of distillation leaves the pulp in the form of charcoal.

COMPRESSED AIR AS POWER FOR MOTOR CARS. One of the most novel motor cars yet built is equipped with a system of compressed air transmission. Mr. Frank Lister is the engineer on whose ideas the patents have been applied for. The basis of the system is to convert gasoline energy into compressed air and discharge the compressed air into a reheater, which obtains its heat units from the exhaust of the gasoline engine. The air, after re-heating, is then used in an air motor similar to the steam engine of the accepted type. The advantages claimed for this system are the elimination of gears, graduated specJ. forward and reverse, reversibility without any regard for gears, a powerblown horn* from storage, inflation of tyres, from storage, and engine brake, which is very flexible in operation, and an emergency air-brake for- instant action, if required. The car is air cooled, the air. being obtained from the exhaust of the air motor. The same system will be adapted to motor boats.

ELECTRICITY IN THE RELIEF OF PAIN. Dr. F. Howard Humfris. says that in electricity we have an agent that affords instant relief in the majority of cases of pain and from its mode of action tends to remove the cause. Electricity is not palliative but curative. It removes stasis (stoppage of the circulation of the smaller blood vessels), aids the functions associated with the absorbtion of food and the excretion of waste products, and restores the physiological function of a diseased organ. The different modes of electricity employed for the • relief of pain are the direct current, the induced currents, magnetic currents, the various high frequency currents, and the vibrator; since it is driven by an electric motor. The secret ef success lies in the choice of the appropiate For most of the neuralgias a mild constant current often succeeds where ' most remedies fail. Static electricity (electricity developed bv friction) fills an important place as an agent in the relief of pain. The five hundred candle power light has a truly remarkable action in the relief of pain. The use of the x-ray for the same purpose is well-known to all. When the pain is generalised the radiant light baths\ with 1,000 candlepower, are very useful. Humanity should not be allowed to suffer unnecessary pain when an agent exists which will relieve it, as electricity."