Scientific Notes.

Lake County Press, Issue 2348, 27 October 1910, Page 7

Scientific Notes.

The Italian Savant, Mgr. Cerebotani, Papal Nuncio at Munich, is the inventor of an instrument like a large watch, which enables a person to receive messages transmitted from “wireless” stations. The apparatus is merely a pocket-receiver, and the only accessories are a bobbin of wire and a metallic encased cane. A person thus equipped can at a given moment receive communications from a station within a radius of twenty to thirty miles. A Frenchman has invented a recording attachment for the piano for the use of composers by which each key, when struck; leaves a mark on a strip of slowly-moving paper. By means of this contrivance improvised music may be transcribed and fleeting ideas _ caught that perhaps it would be impossible for the composer to recall and commit to paper. A VALUABLE DISCOVERY. Blotting-paper was discovered purely by accident. Some ordinary paper was being made one day at a mill in Berkshire, when a careless workman forgot to put in the sizing material. The whole of the paper made was regarded as being useless. The proprietor of the mill desired to write a note shortly afterwards, and he took a piece of waste paper, think-, mg it was good enough for the purpose. To his intense annoyance the ink spread all over the paper. Suddenly there flashed over his mind the thought that this paper would do instead of sand for drying ink, and he at once advertised his waste paper as “blotting.” Thefe was such a big demand that the mill ceased to make ordinary paper, and was soon occupied in making blotting only, the use of which spread to all countries. THE AIR NINE MILES HIGH. Samples of the air at a height of nearly nine miles high have been re-.-ntly taken and experimented upon to test the presence or otherwise of rare gases. The collecting apparatus, carried by a large balloon, is a series of vacuum tubes, each drawn out to a fine point at one end. At the desired height an electro-magnetic device, connected with each tube and operated by a barometer, breaks off the point of the tube, admitting the air. A few minutes later a second contact sends a current through a platinum wire around the broken end, melting the glass and sealing the tube.' All the samples obtained show argon and neon, but no helium was found in air from above six miles.

NATURAL CAS. The first important discovery of natural gas in Europe is reported from Kis-Sarmas, in the district of Klausenburg, in Hungary. Its presence first became known two years ago, when shepherd boys used to light the vapours rising from the marshes. Upon a geologist’s report the Ministry of Finance directed borings to be made, when large quantities of gas were discovered at a depth of 60 feet. The borings were continued to a depth of 600 feet, when the gas was found in such volume that big stones were thrown into the air by it. At the present time the gas is .flowing out of a pipe twenty feet above the ground with a noise that can be heard six miles away. Experts estimate the flow at seventy • cubic feet a second, TELLING THE ACE OF A FISH. The age. of a fish can be determined with accuracy by inspection of the otoliths or bony concretions which are found in the auditory apparatus. These otholiths increase in size during the entire life of a fish, each year adding two payers, a light-coloured layer formed* in summer and a dark layer formed in autumn and winter. The alternate layers are sharply contrasted and very distinct, so that there is no difficulty in counting them. The number of pairs of layers is equal to the number of years the fish has lived. By this method Professor Wallace has made an interesting study of the distribution of fishes of the plaice species over various sea bottoms, according to age. In this way the rapidity of growth of fishes and the effect of fisheries on the Population, of the sea can be determined.