NOTES ON SCIENCE, MECHANICAL INVENTIONS, ETC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9711, 5 January 1895, Page 4 (Supplement)

NOTES ON SCIENCE, MECHANICAL INVENTIONS, ETC.

THE INFINITESIMALLY SMALL.

Some interesting and important advances have lately been made in preparing minute forms of life for the purposes of study. Tiny insects hardly visible to the naked eye used to be gummed at random on a card, and thus the student might have to examine several specimens before he could find one in the right position. Now these insects are properly set out as large insects are, and a single specimen suffices. Still more extraordinary results have been obtained with diatoms, those mere specks of marine vegetation which clothe themselves with a flinty envelope. All British species could be spread out on two square inches of paper. It has been calculated that over 40,000,000 skeletons are packed into a cubic inch of stone. Yet diatoms are now arranged and displayed on glass, so that their beauties may be accurately observed. It should, however, be added that there are nob more than two or three men in England whose sense of touch is sufficiently refined for the task. Any metal instrument would be far too rude, and the delicate operation of laying out a diatom is performed with a fine hair.Manchester Guardian. OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. Sir Robert Ball, in the November number of the Fortnightly Review, shows how, since the days of Wherwell and Brewster, the contention that the other planets are inhabited has been strengthened by fresh discoveries. For instance, spectroscopic research has demonstrated that hydrogen, carbon, sodium, iron, calcium, and other elements necessary for building up the framework of living beings are widely diffused throughout the universe. There is not the same emphatic demonstration of the existence of oxygen, because it has been held that fche well-marked lines in the solar spectrum attributed to oxygen are due to the oxygen in the earth's But in all probability this life-giving gas is just as abundant on many other globes as on this one. There have also, however, been discoveries tending to limit) the contention with regard to life on other planets. The varying size, gravity, and temperature of the planets have to be considered. The weight of a planet must stand in important relation to the framework of the organisms adapted to dwell upon it. Sir Robert Bull concludes " The character of each organism has to bo fitted so exactly to its environment that it seems in the highest degree unlikely that any organism we know here could five on any other globe elsewhere. We cannot conjecture what the organism must be which would be adapted, for residence on Venus or Mars, nor does any line of research at present known to us hold out the hope of more definite knowledge." A KKMARKAHLK PREHISTORIC BOAT. A remarkable discovery has been made during the work of excavating the site for a repairing slip now in course of construction on the shore of Lough Neagh, near the mouth of the River Black water. The workmen came upon an ancient boat embedded under sfb of dense black bog, and measuring 23ft long, 4ft wide in the centre, tapering to 2ft 9in at each end. It has been cub or dug out of solid black oak, the inclined foot-rests for the oarsmen, and the grooves on which to rest the seats, etc., being all left in the solid material. This boat is not of the ordinary "canoe" type, of which several specimens have been found about Lough Neagh, but is evidently such a boat as was employed at a very remote period in traversing in all directions this extensive and oft-times stormy inland sea. The Navigation Board are anxious to hand over the boat to a public museum. The remains of one pair of oars were found in the boat, bub they are greatly decayed. EARTH CURRENTS. The study of earth-currents is one which has made great advances during recent years. In L'Eclairage Electrique Signer Palmieri record* the results of some interesting experiments in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius. A line was laid from the lightning conductor of the observatory on the mountain to the little village of Resina, at the foot, mhere it was earthed in a well. A special detecting instrument was used, as the currents were occasionally violent enough to demagnetise the ordinary astatic needles and to fuse a delicate suspension. After a year's observations it) was found that the currents flowed upwards from tho lower to the higher station, bub in August, 1893, they began to vary, and finally settled down to the «pposito direction. This change took place at tho same time as a recrudescence of activity on the part of the volcano. About January, 1894, the volcano quieted down, and the currents were once more reversed ; bub on a subsequent outbreak in the central crater the same phenomenon occurred. The facta are curious and require explanation. VOLCANIC FRANCE. Many parts of France are believed to be of volcanic origin, and among these the department of Puy de Dome, in the uouth of France. In this portion lies the pretty village of Gilette. In the untold ages of faroff times this now sunny region bore a very differenb aspect, being the scene of a violent eruption of mother earth, carrying unseen fires beneath the level plain, and this earth, combined with lime and water, formed a deep and hardened mass, generating fire of slow growth, which, increasing after a long time, suddenly bursts its bonds, and threw up the limestone rocks that bestow a sublime grandeur on the scone. The evenb was unforeseen, for doubtless man did nob exist in those days, bub the modern knowledge of how rocks and volcanoes are formed tells the tale. Volcanoes in this region appear to have died out, bub who can say, "It is a fact?" In A.D. 1538, on the site of the ancient Lucrina Lake, a new mountain, Monte Nuova, was thrown up in forty-eighb hours to a height of 440 feet. The crater had a depth in the centrS of 418 feet, and the circumference of the mountain so suddenly lifted was 8000 feet. ELECTRICITY AND ELECTRICAL ENERGY. "lb has long been the fashion," says Louis Bell in the Electrical World, "to speak of what we are pleased to call electricity as 'a mysterious * force' and to attribute to everything connected with ib occulb characteristics better suited to medieval wizardry than to modern sciepco. This unhappy condition of affairs has, in the main, come about through indistinctness of some of our fundamental ideas, and inexactitude in expressing them. Thaw* has been even in the minds and writings of some who oughb to know better, a tendenay toward confusing the somewhab hazy individuality of ' electricity' with the sharplydefined properties of electrical energy. Wo have been so overrun by theories of electricity that we have well-nigh forgotten the great) uncertainty as to its concrete existence. Even admitting it to be an entity, it most assuredly is nob a force, mysterious or otherwise. Electrical force there is, and electrical energy there is, and with them we may freely experiment, bub for most practical purposes ' electricity' is merely the factor connecting tho two. The day is past wherein we were at liberty to think of ' electricity' as flowing through a material tube or as plastered upon bodies like a coat of paint. The things with which we have now to deal are the various factors of electrical energy." SOURCES OF ALUMINUM. The presence of aluminum in clay, says the Age of Steel, October 27, has led to wild notions as to its available quantities. Men have looked on a clay bank and indulged in visionary estimates of the wealth that was simply waiting for a large shovel and a roomy wheelbarrow. It is, however, stated as a cold scientific fact by a member of the United States Geological Survey, that until some radical change is made from the present method of reducing aluminum, bauxite must continue bo be the chief source from which the metal is obtained. This mineral, according to geological researches, is at present located in Arkansas and in the southern part of the Appalachian Valley, extending from Adairsville, Ga., to Jacksonville, Ala. The continuity of these deposits is not yeb demonstrated, and the possible or probable supply is an unknown quantity. That science will ultimately devise efficient and economic methods of reducing aluminum, by which the übiquitous white metal can be more generously used, is simply a matter of time.