AFTER THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 121, 22 May 1920, Page 5

AFTER THE WAR

SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS RADIUM FOE RESEARCH. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, Bth April. From the Ministry of Munitions the Ministry of Health has acquired 4.8 grammes of radium, valued at about £72,500. During the war there was an enormous quantity of material, like paint for gun sights, dials, and other surfaces on instruments, that had to be rendered luminous at night. All this was radioactive, and, when the actual element of radium was extracted, it produced sufficient to enable the Eesearch Department to carry out a series of experiments which have been going on at the Middlesex Hospital, principally connected with cancer cure. £500,000 AN OUNCE! By. taking over the radio-active stock from the Ministry of Munitions, the Health ."Research Department has had in its possession the largest amount of this rare substance of nny one authority, for it io computed that half a million pounds sterling per ounce is the market value of* radium. It is fortunate for .British hospitals that this is available, as the world stocks are very short, though in America, certain areas of untappsd radio-bromide are available for. working, iut in actual element for research there is not an ounce in the" world. THE SUPER-GUN. The .French Government has paid 100,000 francs for the patent of the longrange gun. The inventor has also' been authorised to dispose of his invention to either England or Belgium, but the War Office have not purchased the gun. Experiments in lons-range guns were begun by the British War Office'in 1916, and it is an open secret that We already possess a. gun which is believed to be able to project a shell over 100 miles. FIREPROOF KHAKI. Very important tests were made at Aldershot of specially manufactured fire clothing for pilots and men in the Royal Air Force. The suits, which have a specially devised cloth helmet, were placed on dummies, subjected to petrol sprays, and fired. The flames ascended to a great height, but the khaki fabric was scarcely scorched. . LONG-DISTANCE WIRELESS AT SEA. Owing to the success of the new longdistance Marconi wireless sets on board the Cunarders Imperator, Mauretania. nnd Carmania, the White Star vessels Olympic, Adriatic, Baltic, Celtic, Cedric, and Megantic will be similarly equipped on their next sailings from England. All these ships will in future have direct intsr-cc-mmunication with land over a distance of 1400' miles. WIRELESS FOR AEROPLANES. ' Among the exhibits to be seen at the coming' Aeronautical Exhibition, at Olymma, will bo two types of wireler,--signalling apparatus^ for use on aeroplanes. Both are the of Mr. F. 'Wates. One of these, for use on commercial aeroplanes, consists of an alumiiiiuni case measuring about Gin ! .square and enclosing a mechanism constructed so that it will not readily get out of order under tho severe conditions in which it will be used. The front of the instrument has a series of messages engraved on plates in three rows. Alongside the messages are sockets into which a. plug is inserted. On the right hand side of the case a handle is fitted. A plug is also provided attached to a lead, and is inserted in the desired message. A handle is then depressed, and while it elowly returns U the normal position a signal in code is sent in Morse, defining the message anc 1 preceded by the call sing of the' machine and repeating. The advantage of the automatic Transmitter is twofold. It enables signals to be sent in almost any circumstances, and it can be worked by the pilot himself, so that no operator ■need be carried.

The second apparatus is to be used primarily by aeroplanes working in conjunction with artillery, and, by the use of an aeroplane photograph or a map attached to the instrument, messages relating to the observation of fire can be sent back to the guns, as easily as the messages sent to aerodromes by the first apparatus.

CHLORINATING WATER. Storage of water, if long enough, 'kills or devitalises the microbes of water-borne disease, said Captain A. F. Girvan in the course of 1 a paper read before the Institution'of Sanitary Engineers. On the other hand, there might be at certain seasons) a development of algae. To guard against trouble of this kind in the case of the London supply, micro-photo-graphs were taken at* least once a week. These photographs showed not only the •sorts of algae present, but also their number, and enabled the engineers to act in advance in many ways. Captain Girvan referred to the, decision, of the Metropolitan Water Board to chlorinate a considerable proportion of London's water supply in 1916, and mentioned that the treatmentsaved about £1000 a month on the coal bill without deterioration of the water. Dealing with the recently-discovered method of adding a. permanganate to the chlorinated water, he said the treatment was certain to be tried all over the world where chloriaation was done on a large scale, and if. the results were as good as seemed likely, the whole community would owe a deep debt of gratitude to Sir, Alexander Houston for this discovery,

TALKING TO ROME. Experiments are shortly to' be conducted by the Post Office in telephoning between London and Rome. It is considered by the experts that, with the recent development in underground cable work, spoken communication between London and Rome will be possible oh line instruments. If this is successful the charge would be about 12s per call, double the present Paris rate. ,