SCIENCE NOTES.

Bay of Plenty Times, 24 April 1890, Page 1

SCIENCE NOTES.

• IN!EERESTING DISCOVERY. It is stated that Signor Schiaparelli has announced that, after 10 years' investication, he has ascertained that Mercuryma a rotation like that of the moon." Its rotation on its own axis and that round the sun synchronise, so that it always turns the same side to the sun as the moon does to the earth. A MONSTER ROLL OF PAPER. One of the attractions of the Pittsburg Exposition is a monster roll of paper. It is 96in. wide, 14 miles long, urid weighs 2,6581 b. This mammoth roll is perfect, nQt having a hole or break in it. It is a gre^fcuriosity even among papermakers, and It is*S§id to be the largest sheet ever turned tniCofcariy mill. FIB&-TIPPED SPEARS. The Mahdi seeM toJhaVe) been particu-. larly fortunate, from/ a/ religibus^point. *of view, in having had a display of St Elmo's fire— -£&, a brush discharge of .electricity-— r. from the points of his soldiers' spears, winch greatly: added to gjtheia- rehgipus fervour. Omar Sfoleh^ id nf||recent letter to Emm Pashsjj, aUipeSj a.we-strickeji, to these "tongues of 'flame,' 1 ' saying, " This we have seen with our eyesiind Slot heard only." Several instances 6f the same kind have been noticed, with great interest but without the same awe, quite recently,; by scientists on tne jUps and upon Ben Nevis. THE NEFUL-E. ; It is clearer than ev«r, says Professor ! Young, that the nebulee are not "distant galaxies " far beyond the stars. They are not clusters of full-sized stars, which appear I nebulous only because of their inconceivable remoteiiess, but they are clouds, and their luminosity is due to shinin« gases, among "which hydrogen is present/ thougli the gas which furnishes the brightest light remains still unknown, Moreover, these cjonds, whatever else they may contain t»sides the lnnilnons gases, are somehow kindred to the star^ and associated wife !iham in snch a way as to suggest irresisrtßfcr that the nebula is the material o*t of^hidi stars are made. OREAI T^BERa ' There .is a bridge, 'in Oregon, across a ra\ine GO fe«t deepj niatle by spiking a on a tree where it fell by accident Were a windfall in tlie forest lias ocurred, "tfiese great timers He so Uiick that the only way to iross is to walk on the trunks from 10 to 30 feet above the ground. Lumbermen tell of travelling for miles and not once putting their feet on the soil. In the old town ot Taeoina, where the settlement was before the land company and the railroad made a city, there is a "church with a fir tree for a" steeple; *, St Peter founded his church' on a rock. ISti Peter's Chureii of Tacoma lias a tree for its corner stone. This tree has been cut off at a height of 50 feet and upon the top is the

CURIOUS PATENTS. Amongst some curious patents recently examined, we find one in which a sanguine German "inventor" claims the use of a plug of rubber in the metal ferrule of waMng sticks and umbrellas. Another "inventor," this time" hailing from the East of England, patents an apparatus for washing one's feet and legs without stooping. It consists of brushes attached to alight framework of wood with a handle, so as to work them up and down without the necessity of bending the body. Still another patents as a puzzle, the well-known " Captain's dilemma," in which there is a mixed crew of black and white^ and, th£ ship going down, the captain desires to save the white men, and arranges the crew so that by counting in a certain way the agreed-upon numbers always fall on the blacks. Another of a similar class consists in so dividing a "star "that the parts or sections can be reassembled into complete figures, which may be used for advertising purposes.' ELECTRIFIED STEAM. At the last meeting of the Physical Society of London the members were much interested in some very beautiful experiments of Mr Shelford Bidwell, F.R.S. In one of these experiments a powerful electric light cast a shadow of a steam jet upon a screen, but the shadow was barely visible, nor did the jet appear very brilliant under the illumination. A needle point was then held near the jet and electrified by being connected with a Wimshurst machine. Instantly the shadow become conspicuous and of a dark brown 1 colour, %vhile the jet iheJf .became far more, luiuintom- and occasionally coloured. The effect of tlie electrification is apparently instantaneous. It is probable that the explanation may be closely connected with Lord Raleigh's well-known experiment of electrifying a jet of water, which then ceases to scatter and fall in gniall drops, but instead draws itself together and falls in large faltering drops. As Lord Raleigh's experiment explain the large di'°ps associated with a thunderstorn^: so Mr BidweU's seem to throw some liglit upon the extraordinary blackness of thunder clouds, and of the lurid light so often seen in the sky before a storm.

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