SCIENCE NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 15076, 7 January 1913, Page 5

SCIENCE NOTES.

—A Costly Laboratory.— < One of ttie best-equipped chemical and physical laboratories in the world is owned by the famous German firm of Krupps. it is a five-story building, covering an area of 39,000 square feet. The roomy staircase in the centre of the building separates iho chemical roseavclri department from that for physical tests and research work. The underground 100 m.'. contain the hot and cold water, the air. steam, gas, and electric current mains, together with the necessary connections for distribution throughout the different rooms thove. They also contain engines and apparatus for ventilating tho building; electric transformers and batteries, together with the machinery for operating the different testing macliiues used in physical research. The chemical laboratories are most completely equipped for the analysis of steel other metals and alloys, ores, gases, water, and so forth, for testing oils, gunpowders, and all products made and used throughout the establishments. A number of rooms on the lower floor are set apart for manufacturing all the different glass bottles, tubes, and connections used in the chemical laboratory for analytical purposes, tlie plant containing the necessary compressed-air piping and the glass-annealing stoves. All the small fireproof cups and crucibles are. also made ou the spot. The physical research department is also most admirably equipped for metnllographical research work and all classes of physical tests.

—Hand-print as Signature.— The growing use of the thumb-print as a means of idmtiu ration draws attention to the fact that this method of signing documents has been ir. use in China since the beginning of its history (according to a writer in ‘Popular Mechanics’). A striking example of its’application was seen ,11 a Chinese divorce decree, in which the signer used not only his thumb-print, but me impression of Ids whole hand ,and oven foot Tite decree is as follows; "The writer of this divorce agreement, King King Wang, had once, at Sinntchoang, taken for wife the sister of Lion Lao Wei. Now when my family is as poor as if it had just been washed, there is not enough Icod and clothing. I can no longer support my wife. Therefore, in the presence of my wife, (Mrs Lion, i distinctly state that I consent to a divorce; that she can at her will enter another family or seek her own means of living. Lot Her marry any other man. I shall have no objection.’’ —Ancient- Trees.— According to a United States Government bulletin, the oldest Jiving things in the world are the Sequoia trees in the General Grant and Sequoia National Parks, California. It is estimated that some of these were growing 4,000 years ago. Fifteen centuries would seem to he quite a respectable spell of existence, but at this age these extraonlinaiv tree’s are in ihe bloom of youth, and at 2.000 years they are in their prime. It is not only in respect of longevity that the Sequoias are remarkable. _ They are the tallest trees known, and in the two paries there are no fewer than 12,000 larger than 10ft in diameter. Many of these forest giants bear the names of eminent Americans. The General Sherman is 286 ft high and 36fi in diameter, the Abraham Lincoln 270 ft high and 31ft in diameter, the General Grant 264 ft high and 35ft in diameter, the George Washington 255 ft high and 29ft in diameter, and the tallest is the William M’Kinley, 291 ft high and 28ft in diameter. It decs not appear whether there is a “Theodore Roosevelt” Sequoia yet-, lint it is inconceivable that there should not lie a specially virile specimen reserved for the strenuous Colonel. —The. Sacred Fish.—• Now that China is a republic, it would be interesting to know what has become,of the sacred fish which in tho days of the empire, could he eaten only by* tho Emperor of China and Iris folk. This fish is an exqidsito delicacy, so delicious and so rare Unit it has been reserved for royal palates from time immemorial. Tho fishermen whose duty it was to take it from tho only stream in which it has been known to exist—a small river lying between Russian and Chinese domains—have had orders to let none of it bo diverted from its noble destiny. Whether the fishermen themselves ever yielded to what one can imagine as an overmastering passion and indulged in a secret midnight repast of the glorious little fish of course none can saw. But certain it is that the ordinary Chinaman would have turned shudderingly away from a banquet in which the prohibited fish was an item, no matter how his mouth watered for the daintv.

—An Ants’ .Sewing Circle,— A party of German naturalists recently returned from Ceylon have reported the existence of a, species of ant that has been observed in tho act of sewing two leaves together for the purpose of forming a nest. Tiffs report, says a writer in the ‘New York Sunday Magazine,’ confirms tho observations'of the English naturalist, Ridley, made in 1890. They saw a row of the insects pulling the edges of leaves together; then others trimming and lilting .the edges ; and finally the completion of the work by still other ants, which fastened the edges with a silky thread yielded by larvfe of the same species, the workers carried in their mandibles, it is. said that the sewing ants pass tho thread-giving larvso like shuttles through holes in the edges of the leaves.