SCIENCE SIFTMGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 101, 27 April 1912, Page 15

SCIENCE SIFTMGS.

MALAY CURIOSITIES. It was reported by Mr. Yapp, the English naturalist, who explored the mountain ranges of'tbe Malay Peninsula, that in several species of bamboo the hollow | internod.es—the parts of the stems be-! tween the joints are stored with large <inantities of naturally filtered water. The knowledge of this fact might be of great service in an emergency. "Mr. I Yapp also discovered on hia last visit , two species of ferns, growing on trees, whose thick, fleshy steins are filled with galleries tunnelled by ants, the ferns . thus forming living nests for the ants. i A DEEP BORE. j What is believed to be the deepest hole in the ground has been sunk at tin- village of C/uchow, in .Silesia. Ger- ; many, affording exceptional opportunity • for scientific study. The bore is 17 1-3 inches in diameter at the mouth and a little short of two inches at the bottom. The exact depth of the hole is said te be 7348 feet. For a distance of 6848 feet it is lined with iron tubing. The ex- ! periments that have so far been made ! with the bore show that the temperature ■ of the earth increases at the rate of one ilfTfv Fahrenheit for each section of i 58 feet, or one degree centigrade for.each i 104.3 feet. j VALUE OF WIRELESS. ' .Several determinations of longitude 'nave of late been made by means of wireless messages, but the mott ambitious attempt of this nature has just taken jjUii-e between Paris mid Tunis, wireless signals connecting two clucks, one at tliej ; Killel Tower and the other at Bizerui, j Tuni.-, the comparison of which decided the longitude. The signals travelled the 'whole distance ill U.UOT second, which : works out at nearly 200,000 miles a i second. \\ lien Sir (ieorge Airy. AstronoI mer Royal, determined the longitude of . Valentia. the little island on lie coast of Kerry, where the Atlantic cables enter the sea. he had no fewer than thirty chronometers carried backwards and forwards between Valentia and Greenwich observatory 22 times before lie was satislied. BK.W HE'S' WORK. The beavers not only cut down trees ' for the piirpo.-p of mailing dams, but ( also u-e the small upper branches as a storage supply of food tor wintei use. .-ays a writer in an American ex change. The-e branches, from two to four inches in diameter, are put into lengths of two or three feet and then by wonderful engineering ability are car- ! ried beneath the water and iuto the bea- | vers' houses or "burrows, with which the ! bank of every beavers' dam is honeyI combed. Here" they are carefully stored. J Tlir- green bark is the staple article ol ■ food throughout the winter. The dams : are of varying height and length, ac I cording to the particular location. 1 I found a d-im in Mesa county. -Colorado I which was just .-ix feet from bottom tn top, and impounded a body of water six feet or more in depth and covering an area of several acres. This dam was peri feet in construction. It was composed en tirely of willow bushes, as no large tim ber grows in the vicinity. * & CASPIAN" OIL WELLS THREATENED. A St. Petersburg message published in London otutes that the Russian naphtha industry deems to be threatened by a mysterious danger, difficult alike to explain or to displace. The .Seismic Commission, working under the auspices of the Imperial Academy of Science.-, has been petitioned to investigate the fluctuations -of the bed of the Caspian Sea, which has been shoaling rapidly of late, with the resrult that the naphtha industry is being affected injuriously. The question actually before the Commission is whether the shoaling process has been caused by a lowering of the level of the water, which is seemingly vanishing, or whether the .shores or the Caspian are rising. A sub-commissyon. consisting of -ix specialism, including the Director of the Imperial Observatory, has been appointed to .study on the spot a problem which tin* representatives of the various oil tirms regard a* of the highest importance to industrial Russia. A conjecture has been hazarded by some tlvat the change of level results from the annual withdrawal of millions of tons of naphtha from the ground. SEX DETERMINATION". For many years a wientrfic breeder of stock in England has been investigating the question of the determination of sex. He now considers that in most stock he. can prophesy with considerable certainty the sex of the offspring; and his views are to be published in a small pamphlet called -The Production of Sex at Will in Animal.-." His secret appears to lie in a e\i*>c and particular study of the more immediate ancestors of the parents. He thus trndri what, is called a male or a female "preponderancy.' , and by judging t.he degree of this preponderance in tlie father and mother the probability of the offspring's sex can 1* accurately foretold. The author, who has had t.wentv > ears' experience with every sort of stork, has achieved great results and is confident that "the rules and n»w lines ]?;.(] down in this pamphlet, on sex preponderancy will be followed by all stock breeders with success, and that the Government will found breeding -tuUs or farms where breeders can have their stocks replenished and renewed. A sufficient nnmber of approved breeder of sire* and d;un~ should be .subsidised. Breeding of animals will then be on strong, '"safe, and proper foundation?. , ' Ai.ES Of ANIMAL?. Undoubtedly the longest lived animal on earth is the whale, its span of existence being estimated by Cuvier at 1000 years. .So write.-, Mr. Hmmett Campbell Hall, ill "Our Dumb Animal.-." The next largest animal, the elephant, will. under favourable conditions, live 400 years. When Alexander the Great conquered I'orus. King of India, he took a great ejephant that bad fought gallantly 7or the defeated king, named him Ajax. dedicated him to the sun, placed upon him a metal band with the inscription, '•Alexander, the son of Jupiter, dedicated Ajax to the sun." The elephant was found, alive, three hundred and fifty | years later. Tli« average age of cuts is fifteen years: <>i squirrels seven or eight years: "of rabbit.-. seven: a bear rarely exceed.-, twenty year-: a wolf, twenty: a «ox. fourteen to sixteen. Lions are comparatively long-lived, instances having been recorded where they reached the atre of seventy year?. Pigs have been: known to live to the age of twenty vc:ii>. and h.ir.-cs to sixty, but the averasp ;',2e of the horse is twenty-live to thirty. Camels sometimes live to th" ;igc of 100. and -tags are very long-lived. KngW occasionally, and raven- frequently. reach the age of 100 years, and swan% hiw. been known to live 300 years. A tortoise has been known to live 107 years. — - -~^_;