MARCH OF SCIENCE

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17984, 30 January 1924, Page 14

MARCH OF SCIENCE

U.S. MOVING FORWARD. ;r?.GM uvi; oira con?.£Si-o:> r D?:jrr. ; SAN FRANCISCO, January 1, The close or the old year witnessed 'several noteworthy developments in the field of science in the United States, many of which caine within the realms of the all-absorbing wireless telephony, nut at the well-known mining district df Vaeaville, in California, a half-dozen hvdro-electric engineers, snowed in by blizzards and completely cut off from communication with the outside world in a mountain camp north of the city, freely attested the verity of the old adage that "Necessity is the mother of invention."

Hemmed in by huge drifts from snows which started early in the last week in December, and confronted not only by a turkeyless, but a foodless Christmas, when the only telephone line to the camp went out of commission, the party summoned both food and help by evolving a new method of "directed" radio transmission.

Not only did they save themselves, but their experiments may go a long way toward revolutionising present land use of wireless. The results of their efforts to obtain Christmas Day succour was a now "wired wireless" method by which radio messages can be confined to ono direction and sent without conflict with any other radio sending or receiving station in tho use of air. The discovery was made when tho engineers who are employed in hydroelectric development work by tho Pacific Gas and Electric Company, tuned a small radio set which they carried in the direction of high voltago transmission lines which ran past their camp. Value of Discovery. The sound waves precipitated against tho power wires wero carried to tho terminus of tho lines in Vacaville, n distance of 260 miles, whoro they wero picked off by a small boy with an amateur receiving set. Shortly . after tho first message "was received, power company employees, using another youthful radio operator and his amateur sending sot, .wero in full communication with tho snowbound engineers, and help was on tho way to them. Tlio value of tho chanco discovery precipitated by necessity, according to radio experts in California, lies in tho possible use of all kinds of land lines in the same kind of "directed" sending. Not only can high tension lines be pressed into such service, they assert, but telephone and telegraph lines, and «J#eh barbed wire fences, can bo utilised in tho sanie' \ra.y without interfering in any manner with their other uses. Tho same "wired wireless" system, they stated, can be used to send messages when static conditions prevent the use of the regular radio methods. _ Another interesting development in radio was that announced from NewYork, when it. was stated that California, New Mexico, Florida, and all other spots in between will soon be able to know what New York school-children are taught, what music the grown-ups are enjoying, and "what the great speakers and artists who visit America's largest city have to say. 1 For in the spring there will be installed in Central Patfc the largest radio broadcasting station in the East, to be managed by. the municipality for tho benefit of its citizens. It will spread incidentally over the United States many things of great educational value.

"It is the biggest thing our citycan do for itself and the country," Commissioner Whalen, of the Department of Plants and Structures, said in making the announcement. The enterprise is under the direction of his Department. The idea of municipal broadcasting was promulgated originally in New York two years ago. Now the sum of 50,000. dollars ha 3 been appropriated for the establishment of a station. "That will mean," continued Commissioner Whalen, "that next summer .'300,000 persons can hear tho band concerts in the park" itself instead of the very few thousands that - previously crowded around the bandstand. It will mean, too, that a million radio enthusiasts in New York and America generally can tune in and hear the biggest bands and artists in the world." Device for Deaf People. Every indication points to success in developing a hand device which the totally deaf may carry and by which they may receive impressions of oral 6peech, judging by an important announcement mad© in liYanston, Illinois, by Professor Robert H. Gault, head of. +.lio psychology department of the North-Western University of Illinois. Professor Gault based his announcement on the progress of a year of intensive work on the problem, and in making experiments in determining words and sentences by actual contact. "To-day it is safe to say that the human being can feel sound waves by touch, and can clearly translate such actual impressions into words and sentences," said Prof. Gault. More than a year ago Prof. Gault started work with two students, George and John Crane, brothers, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, _ He succeeded in communicating with a metal tube variious words and sentences which the Crane brothers detected with the aid of the hand only.

At that time one of the brothers sat in a room and spoke through the tube, ■while the other, in an adjoining room, ears muffled and with hand over the receiving end of the tube, announced his interpretation of the sound vibrattions. This year Prof. Gault has been utilising an acousticon for amplifying vibrations at the sending end, while he employs a small receiving disc held in the. hand.at the other. Prof. Gault himself has been working upon the long vowels and upon several short sentences which a graduate student, S. N. Stevens, sitting in an adjoining building 60ft away, repeats with unerring accuracy. Another Sound Wonder. In the realm of assisting the deaf may be. mentioned a development announced, in Kew York in the line of harnessing for the use of practical Bcience the potentialities of ultra audible ether vibration, which American scientists have evinced great interest in. This was the result of a statement by the "SVestinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company of the perby Dr. Phillips Thomas of an electric microphone which, it was cjami'rrj, recorded sounds too faint for perception by the human ear. The microphone, H.-iid to employ an entirely ihjw principle, will open vast ft'tl'ia of entomological research by umkhig yum\tUi Uio recording of

sounds made by insects, apparently mate, it was asserted. It. is also supposed that the discovery will materially assist those afflicted with deafness. California is intensely interested in the news that Professor W. L. It. Emmet, consulting engineer of the General Electric Company of America, has perfected a means of vapourising mercury and using it to provide electric power at about half the present cost of fuel. The process of condensation can be used to convert water into steam for both power and heating purposes. It is noted that California is the principal source of mercury supplies for the United States, the largest mine in America being located in San Benito County, California. Power Revolution. One boiler in use at the plant of the Hartford Electric Eight Company contains 30,000 pounds of mercury and that mineral now sells for about 3s 4d a pound. Naturally, it may be urged that this may seem an enormous cost for one boiler, but it is a first and last cost, as the mercury can be used over and over again, the loss being merely fractional. According to an extended article in the "New York World,'' Mr Emmet has been working on his idea for the past twelve years. It is now in practical operation at Hartford, supplying electric power to homes and industrial plants in that city. The mercury vapour is used to operate turbines that aro said to be far more effective than the steam turbines, which, in turn, are about 40 per cant, more efficient than the best reciprocating engines. One advantage indicated is that although still better mercury turbines are being developed it is fortunate that the new system can be installed without "scrapping" very much of tho present equipment in power stations. Commenting on his power discovery, Mr Emmet says: "The mercury' vai pour process involves the vapourisation of mercury in a boiler, driving of a turbine by the vapour, and the condensation of the exhaust in a condenser where its latent heat is. delivered to water and thus used to generate steam at pressure suitable for use in existing steam plants. The condensed mercury runs back by gravity into the mercury boiler. Thus the mercury acts as a heat conveyor and at the same timo delivers energy to the turbines." Tho substitution of mercury for water permits a saving of about 50 per cent, in fuel. A greater energy can be developed by the same amount of heat, and both steam and mercury vapour can be developed from the same initial heat source, the fire-box. The discovery does not touch the question of power an generated by water, but the new system means an ! enormous saving to the national fnel bill. In Hartford alone, with a population of 175,000, about 1,500,000 dollars was spent in 1922 for fuel to generate electricity for homes and factories. The expenditures for larger Eastern cities was proportionately greater. . Ape anil Man Relationship. At the convention held in Cincinnati by the members of the American National Association for the Advancement of Science, L>r. Ales Hardlicka, of the National Museum, Washington, stated that in his opinion man, although the product oi evolution, did not descend directly from tlie ape of to-day, but that he had his origin in Europe instead of Asia, as generally was presumed. The relationship of the existent ape to man probably was that of a "cousin," Dr. Mardlicka said, the two having sprung from branches of the same iamily hundreds of thousands of years ago. "If we went far enough back, however, both probably would be found to have lxad their origin in the state of a simple, double molecule." he added. The development of the human race he pictured as similar to that of 'a tree, all of which is the product of a central trunk. Man, he said, might be compared to tho top, which had. grown and developed to the supreme point, while all the branches and offshoots could be considered as the lower animal, all originating from a common source, but developing along different lines." Three trips to Europe during which he studied the results of excavations made in Central European countries have convinced lfim, Dr. Hardlicka said, that that district and not Asia or Africa or other-.remote points was the "cradle of humanity." Indisputable traces of men who existed almost at the beginning of the "ice" period of 400,000 to 500,000 years ago have been found in rrarious places in Europe, he asserted. Photographic Marvel. Various coloured lights given off by plants, presumably in tneir rood-making processes, have finally been seen through a new achievement in photographic science, an announcement to this effect being made before the Association by Proiessor Francis E. Lloyd, of McGill University of Montreal. Ke declared that a "fluerescent" property of plants caused item to give off light of a colour peculiar to the substance after having been exposed to white light. An extraordinary story of an egglaying female dove that was completely changed into a male through a tuberculosis infection was told to the American Society of Zoologists by Dr. Oscar Riddle of the research staff of the Carnegie station for experimental evolution at Cold Springs Harbour, Long | Island, New York. He concluded from the result of the experiment with the dove in the case depicted, that "it becomes wiiolly probable that all hereditary characteristics of every human being and of every organism are capable of reversal and -.modification, and that the accomplishment of this merely awaits the definite- ! ]y directed efforts of investfgators in j this branch of science."