Helium Gas Keeps Cake Six Months

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6747, 4 January 1932, Page 2

Helium Gas Keeps Cake Six Months

Preservation of cako over a period of several months, provided Johnny can bo kept away from the cake box that long, can bo accomplished through tho uso of helium gas, according to natural scientists. In recent experiments, half of a fruit cake and tho fresh juice of oranges were preserved for six months, sealed in helium, and were found at tho end of that time as fresh and tasty as when sealed. More than three-seoTe years ago, a ray of sunlight, shining through an open window in the Jannscn laboratory in France, was broken up in a spectroscope and revealed for the flrst time a now yellow lino This lino, to Professor Jannsen, meant a new element, and because of its presence in the sun it was called Helium (sun element). Nearly a quarter of a century elapsed before any trace of this element was found in or near the earth’s surface. Then a flame, burning in the laboratory of Sir William Ramsay, of England, heated a rock of clevoite from the mines of Norway, and tho gas given off contained helium. ■Only small amounts of it could be extracted at that time, and its cost was very great. But chemists, after continued experimenting, found traces of it in tho atmosphere. Then in the early part of tho twentieth century, while experimenting with tho radioactivity of radium, helium gas was found Even up to 1914, at the beginning of tho World War, its cost was in tho neighbourhood £4OO a cubic foot, but again necessity proved the mother of invention, and moro abundant sources of helium were sought and found, as well as cheaper means of extracting discovered. Thus, at the close of the World War, it could be bought for as low as 2Jd a cubic foot. One of tho outstanding qualities of the gas is its extreme lightness which has made it valuable in lighter-lhan-air craft. But recently it has invaded the Held of food preservation. Then its heating and cooling qualities were discovered, as well as its aid in metallurgy, drying systems and in deep sea diving. Those who are experimenting with it constantly can forsee no end to its adaptability to many industrial and domestic uses iu the future.