Science Notes.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7902, 30 July 1904, Page 2

Science Notes.

It was recently announced that Professor Earl Seiileieh, of Berlin, had been rewarded for the discovery of a new local anesthetic At a recent meeting of the Paris Academy of Medicine, Messeurs Forneau and Billon gave an account of yet another anesthetic which they, had discovered. It had most of the properties of cocaine, but is only halfas poisonous. ', Its' name is rather lehgthy, being A-dhnethylamino-B-benzoyl-prophenol. It vrili.be popularly known as amylene, however; The discoverers stats that it may be used rin surgical cases, dentistry; and ophthalmology. At Snow Hill station, Birming&atn, a now fog-signalling apparatus, tha invention of Mr Led'erook. the chief inspector of signals -for • tao Midland sGCtioo. ofthe Great Western Railway Company, was tested. The device, which is termed the " Automatic Bell Auxiliary Eailwa7 Signal;" is fixed to the inside of one of the rails; When tho signal is &t danger the mechanism is ready for operation. The flange j of the-epßtne wheel cleaves the contrivance, which operates a lever,. causins* two hammers fixed alongside .the line to strike a.bell simultaneously. "When the signal is clear the alarm drops, and the engine wbe?i makes no contact. "When the bell has been" Tinging" a. pneumatic cylinder. gradu-I ally sets the apparatus again, ready for the next train. During the last quarter of a century 1,200 sets of. apparatus for fog-signalling have been tested bj J railway companies, but none have satisfied them. - All who watched the test spoke highly of Mr Ledbrook's in-ven-tlOl). . r _Ths-Gloucestershire Education Comrcittce soms time e-sfo passed a resolutio.ii that as part-of the eeiigious in6truc-"| iioa_ to the ehildfeu simple stcrios from .the Oid Testament should ha given, a] nnmbec, of scientists - residicg in the | county ■(a- <oordiog- to.' the" 'Bnglieh Mechncic') 'in r« m9iuorial . point out that suoh simple stories aa those of the Fall, the Flood, .the Ark, and the Tower ■ of- Babel are opposed to- the teaching of ..biology, geology, anthrop olo«y,"aad philology ; and they say'that ii these stories are 60 be taught as truths the Committee will be '' going far to stunt- the intelleotiuai d6veloacaent ofthe children." . . : ' ~., .