SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 196, 19 August 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

MODULATIONS OF THE HUMAN VOICE. The range of the human voice is quite astonishing. There are about 9 perfect tones, but 17,592,186,044,515 different sounds; thus 14 direct muscles, alone or altogether, produce 16,383 sounds; 30 direct muscles produce 173,741,823, and all in cooperation produce the number named, and these independently of different degrees of intensity and of the indefinable something called expression. A NEW HEADLIGHT. Numbered among recent inventions is a locomotive headlight which, when the train is rounding a curve, turns in such a manner as to keep its projected shaft of light continually upon the rails, instead of pointing to one side, as occurs with a stationary headlight. The motion of the headlight is controlled by means of an air cylinder connected with the air brake system of the train and regulated by a valve in the cab. When the locomotive strikes a straight section of track the headlight automatically returns to its proper position. NEW NAME FOR THE "RED MAN." The Anthropological Society of Washington proposes to give a new name to the native tribes of America, for use in scientific works. They are sometimes called "Americans," and sometimes "Indians:" but the white incomers are now called "Americans," and "Indians" the red men are not. "American Indian" might do. but it is a clumsy phrase, and it is proposed to form, out of the two -words composing it a single word—"Amerind," and use it to designate all the aboriginal tribes of the American continent and the adjacent islands. ARTIFICIAL CLOUDS. Invention is being rather strained for sensational exhibits at the great Paris Exposition. Another project is a section for the production of artificial clouds, the visitors to the section being able to move about in conditions only to be otherwise experienced by the ballonist. The principle of the manufacture of clouds is simply that when air containing aqueous vapour is cooled below its saturation point, condensation of the vapour commences. Air saturated with moisture is to be manufactured into "clouds" by allowing it to sud- ! denlv expand by relieving it of pressure, when the "cloud" will be allowed to escape and float about the building. PHOTOGRAPHING IN COLOURS. A new process, of photographing in colours is the invention of Prof. R. W. Wood, of the University of Wisconsin. The pictures are made on a transparent film deposited on glass and containing very fine lines—about 2000 to the inch on the average —and so not visible to the unaided eye. No colours are visible until the pictures are placed in a special viewingl apparatus, consisting of a complex lens on a light frame. The lens and the lines on the plate, acting together, ! form overlapping- spectra, which affect the eye in such a manner that the natural hues appear in the picture in the proper places and intensities. The pictures can also be projected in colour upon a screen. . THE STRONGEST SHIP AFLOAT. A very interesting article in the double July number of "Pearson's Magazine" gives a full illustrated account of the wonders of the quadruple screw steamer Ermack, the largest and most powerful ice breaker in the world, which an English firm have built for the Russian Government. As everyone knows, Russia's principal ports are ice bound during four or five months in the year and the Ermack has been specially designed to be able-to keep an open seaway between the ports and the ocean by breaking up the intervening ice with her enormous strength and ; weight. "The Ermaek," says the I writer, " is by far the most powerful ■ that has yet been constructed for the purpose of ice-fighting. Imagine, to beg-in with, a hull of steel, 305 ft long. ; 71ft broad, 42ft Gin in depth, and SOOO tons displacement, which is capable of being hurled on to an ice-pack, 10ft thick, with the concentrated energy of 12,000 horse-power, without getting hurt, and you will have some idea of what the Ermack really is. It is hardly necessary to say that any other steamer built in the ordinary way and subjected to a test like this, would just crumple up and go down I without having hurt the ice very i much—much as an Atlantic liner would do if. it charged an iceberg at fifteen or sixteen knots. This is just what the Ermack is built not to do. And that too is why, with the excepr tion of one or two smaller boats of her own class, she is built differently from all other steamers in the world. The real ice-breaker does not break the ice tip, she breaks it down; and fore and aft amidships she is so constructed that there is not a single angle that the ice can get hold of. Her sides are as round as those of an apple, and every surface that she presents to the ice is that of an unbroken curve. Everyone who has read about whaling voyages knows what it means fo a vessel to get 'nipped' in the ice. It means the fate of a nut between a pair of irresistible nutcrackers. This, however, would not be the fate of the Ermack. If she w-ere caught between a couple of closing masses of ice she would just begin to rise slowly and easily without so much as a shiver. Meanwhile her powerful pumps -would be set to work, certain of her. compartments would be filled tip with water, and in the end the ice would have to ' support a weight of about 10,000 tons— or give .way. It would probably g-iye way. The Ermack would settle back into the water with a mountain of smashed-up ice.on.either side of her, after which she would proceed. to business as usual."