SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 38, 13 February 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

UTIUSING- THE EIFFEL. The Paris Aero Club has accepted 31Eiffel's offer to use the tower that bears his name for aerostatic purposes. The proposal is to connect the tower at a point 150 feet up by a steel cable with, another point 60ft. high. Experiments will then be made on the cable with a pro-peller-driven car to test the air resistance. AMERICAN MINERAL OIL. The exports of mineral oil come next in value to those of steel and iron. It is exported chiefly as illuminating oil. In 1892, oil of all classes was exported to the value of nearly £8,000,000; this had increased in 1896 to over £11,600.000 and in 1900 to £13,600,000. Since that year the value of the exports has fallen, in common with so many other exports, owing to increased home demand.— "Traction and Transmission." ANIMAL PHOSPHORESCENCE. Animal phosphorescence is one of the most surprising and least understood of nature's phenomena. The pale, bluishwhite light of the glowworm has been found by naturalists to depend upon the motfo'n of the insect's body or legs; from this it would seem that the phosphorescence depends Upon some nervous action, regulated at pleasure by the insect, for it has the power of obscuring it entirely. If the glowworm be crushed and the face or hands rubbed with it, luminous streaks like those produced by phosphorous will appear. They shine more brightly in oxygen gas and in nitrous acid. j The power of emitting luminous rays belongs to several varieties of fly and three species of beetle of the genus Efla-teT. One of the most brilliant of these is th£ great lantern fly of South America, which gives enough ligLt to enable a person to read by the rays from a single insect. HOW FEOWERS ADVERTISE. "Advertising in nature," says "Science Siftings," is but a makeshift nickname for a recently realised, and consequently unehristened principle. Flowers advertise. They acquaint bees with the fact that honey is kept within. But the philanthropy of the is only on the* surface. This advertisement is displayed in as strict as business spirit as is any manufacturer's printed notification concerning soap or pills. Behind the ivhole proceeding is a concern that the bee should, though without intent or knowledge, put pollen, to its appointed use. The advertisements of flowers are sometimes as fatal as those of the turf tipster. Little birds are attracted to the arum lily's seed pod by the seduction of its scarlet coat, and this action of its scarlet coat, and this action of the plant has been aptly characterised by Professor Bottomley as bird murder. The decayed body of the treacherously poisoned bird makes just tli<? proper ITttle heap of nutxitive soil for the termination of the seed.