SCIENCE, MECHANICAL INVENTIONS, ETC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12859, 6 May 1905, Page 4 (Supplement)

SCIENCE, MECHANICAL INVENTIONS, ETC.

TIMBER RIBBONS. It is not generally known, says and Ameri- - can paper, that "many of the handsomest summer hats worn by women are literally made rom wood "shavings." The finest examples o» this industry are produced in Japan, these wooden ribbons appearing in man* forms, some of which have almost the delicacy and sheen of satin, while others resenibl-. soft and dainty crepes. NEW SUN SPOTS. Another group of sun spots has appeared on the eastern meridian. They cover an area of possibly 3,000,000,000 square miles, and' are more active (says the Scientific American) than the great spots which appeared last month, and'rthich are breaking up and "disappearing beyond the central meridian. These new spots are likely to cause disturbances of some importance in the atmospheric conditions later, but it is too early to predict positively as to that. DRY-ROT REMEDY. I Dissolve 15 kilos of trinitrophenol in 35 kilos of hot water, and after the solution | obtained has almost cooled, gradually entei i 20 kilos of soda lye of 15 degrees Be., with continued slow stirring. By the addition of dye-stuffs any desired colour can be produced. This preparation hits an excellent antiseptic action, and is a radical remedy for the eradication or prevention of drydelaying the rotting or moulding of wood most effectively. RAILWAY RACING. Elaborate tests are being- carried out on the main lines of the New York Centra! liailroad near Schenectady. They are to memde races between similar trains run siing? side by side, the electric op the local, __ and tie steam trains on the adjoining express tracks. Thus an Empire State express train, hauled by si steam locomotive. .will start from rest on the express track, side by side with an exactly identical train iianled by the electric locomotive on the . local track. ANOTHER ALPINE TUNNEL. The ''Times ■ states that the French Ministry of Public Works hr commissioned M. "Jacquier to project plan? for a railway between Chamonix and Aosta. It is considered that the difficulty would not 'be so great as with the Simplon tunnel: the tunnel would be 4£ miles shorter, and the lock gives no indication of subterranean reservoirs of water. The tunnel would commence at Cbamonix. 3415 feet above sea level; and end at Entreves (4550 feet), a distance of 8i miles. The Dora Baltea would give ample water power for the boring works, and' afterwards for locomotion. COAL CUTTING BY ELECTRICITY. ' Electric coal cutters, which have recently been introduced into one of the Leicestershire pits, appear (says the London Sun) iv possess immense economical advantages over manual labour. The electric current is generated on the surface, and conveyed •by cable to the distributing switch-board at the bottom of the •haft. Prow there a number of smaller conducting cables supply the current to the electric motors driviug . the cutting tools. Apart from the greatly increased output rendered possible by these machines, it is stated that, a considerable reduction in waste ia effected.

NUMISMATIC CURIOSITY. The Museum of Medals at Athens has received from an Italian antiquary in Cairo an interesting and important contribution to it« treasures in the shape of one hundred tetradrachms, together with a bronze die, Buch as was used for coining money at Alliens in the third century B.C. M. Svoronos, Director of the Museum, is of opinion that the die was stolen by a Greek, and used in ; Egypt for coining tetraftTacbms with false metal. As the tetradrachin was worth -about 3s 3d. a handsome income might be earned in this way. In Greece, the punishment for false- coining was death, but bad money seems to have been by no means rare. THE NEW WAY. The old prospectors or metal hunters" of America, armed with pick, shovel, and pan, are now succeeded by regular parties with pack mules, a geologist, a chemist, maps, and scientific apparatus. The old '•pocket hunter" and ordinary prospector dug the soil of a mountain .side or gathered the sane of a stream and washed it in his pan to find the yellow streak of gold. The modern prospector drills the rock and sinks a shaft by explosive cartridges ignited by electricity from a chemical battery, which also serves to separate the precious metal from the dross by electrolysis. A chemical laboratory for analysis, and mercury for amalgamation- are part of the outfit. ' A ROMANCE OF SCIENCE. A romance of science has been the recentdiscovery )f a fossil egg in the Gila River, in Arizona. A writer in the American Journal of Science ■ says that a prospector, examining stones, came upon what seemed to be a water-worn pebble, four or five inches in diameter. He cracked off a fragment with his pick and' discovered a fossil egg inside. The contents had been converted into * substance resembling asphalt, which confirms the theory that bitumen is derived from animal remains. The egg is as large as that ot a duck or goose, and must have been, laid hundreds of thousands of years ago. A 'bird of the size of a goose or cormorant must have laid it, and then it fell into water, or into the soft ooze of which 3imestone is formed, with sufficient force to become embedded, and thus protected. For yews the ooze continued to be formed ion top, and at last the whole became .:oneolidated into limestone. Then the limestone was lifted from its watery bed, perhaps by volcanic action, and formed a portion rof • a mountain range. Through the agency of frost and rain, cold and sunshine, fragments of limestone were broken off, until at last the egg was reached, and the piece of fitoone containing it fell into the Gila River. .It was rolled over and over among a multitude of other stones, until its angles •wet* nibbed off, and it became a water-worn pebble in a mountain stream.

MARCONI AN!) WIRELESS TELE- ! GRAPH Y. "Wireless telegraphy is, after all," observed Mr. Marconi lately to a representative of the World, "only the practical • application of a new way of controlling and diverting certain kinds of ethecic waves named Hertzian (after the scientist who first discovered them in 1388), to'tlie useful purpose of communicating intelligence over sea. and land without the employment of wires or other intermediary ltiecbtuiical means. ; ' Although I was deeply impressed, owing to my experiments, with the value of the etberie or electric waves given off into space under certain conditions of electrical disturbance, I, could scarcely conceive it possible that their application to useful purposes could' have escaped the notice of eminent scientists." And so much did this supposition impress him that to convince himself one way or the other he made diligent search ia the journals devoted to electrical experiments, but each day's fruitless search finally led him-to the belief that he had indeed found a ''new heaven and a new earth" in this particular path of science. However, it was some time before success crowned Mr. Marconi's experiments by giving him satisfactory results. "At first I was not able to effect a transmission across a space as wide as the top of that little Sutherland table : but we are doing better now," he added, "for we are sending messages across the Atlantic two thousand rive hundred (land) miles, and in the nineteenth part of a second, as calculated by a high authority; and in two or three years, if it be not too presumptuous to say so, we hope to send messages right round me globe without the assistance of any intermediate station." It i? in such simple fashion that this great inventor speaks of an electrical scheme 7. which'. bids fair to revolutionise the whole system of communicating intelligence by electricity as previously practised by wire and cable. .