SCIENCE, MECHANICAL INVENTIONS, ETC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13390, 19 January 1907, Page 4 (Supplement)

SCIENCE, MECHANICAL INVENTIONS, ETC.

BICYCLE WITH A PROPELLER. : To determine the effect upon a bicycle of a well-designed propeller, driven by a sixhorse power motor, has been the purpose of the experiments of M. Archdeacon. The motor bicycle is provided with a propeller shaft carried in a frame supplying a bearing just in front of the driver's seat and another in front of the front wheel. Power is furnished by a two-cylinder Buchet motor. The propeller has two sheet aluminum blades, and their inner portion is perforated and covered with gold-beater's skin. The machine weighs about 1541b. Carrying the famous bicyclist Anzani, the total weight being 3301b,"the bicycle glided along very smoothly, and ultimately developed the fair speed of 49.27 miles an hour.

NEW SOURCE OF PAPER. The manufacture of paper from the fibre of the cotton stalk is one of the latest inventions which are said to have passed the experimental stage. It is asserted (says Popular Science Sittings) that all grades of paper, from the best form of linen to the lowest grade, can be manufactured from cotton stalk-, in addition to this, a variety of by-products. such as alcohol, nitrogen, material for gun-cotton and smokeless powder, can also be secured in paying quantities. Mills for the use of cotton' stalks in that way may become general in the cottongrowing ' countries. It is estimated that on an area of land producing a bale of cotton at hast one ton of stalks can be gathered. Upon this basis, from 10.000.000 to .12.000.000 tons of raw material could be secured for the production of paper, which would increase tie' value of the United States' cotton crop nearly £2.000.000. AEROPLANE-MAKERS. M*. Jacques Fame, the celebrated aeronaut, states that five important firms of motor-car manufacturers in Paris have decided to begin the construction of aeroplanes. The manufacture of aeroplanes, he said, would shortly be a regular industry, and he believed the various prizes offered for ■ successful flight would soon be won. The brothers Wright, of Dayton. Ohio, have written to the secretary of the Aero Club concerning the aeroplanes with which they are alleged to have made very successful experiments. They state that they have designed and constructed new and" powerful motors of 28-h.p., which should easily carry two men and fuel for a flight of 190 miles at- a speed of more than forty-five miles an horn*. They declare that they had previously solved the extremely complicated problem of aerial equilibrium, after six years of hard work and more than 1000 "trial flights. They express no opinion on M. Santos Dumont s recent achievement, except that they can hardly believe anyone could make such a flight without years of previous experiment. The French Government sent a mission to Dayton last March to investigate the claims of the Wright brothers. The mission obtained certain particulars of the invention, and negotiations are still in progress. A NEW EXPLOSIVE. In the making of the Simplon Tunnel a new explosive was experimented with, but had to be abandoned because it produced such enormous quantities of the poisonous carbon monoxide that the air in the tunnel would have been unfit for breathing. The explosive, which is described in the Annates des Ponts et Chaussees, was made by soaking powdered charcoal in liquid air or liquid oxygen. The powdered charcoal which by itself is of course quite harmlesswas packed in stout paper cartridgecases fitted with a paper tube, through which the liquid air was jxjured at the last moment before use, and the tiring was accomplished by means of the usual fulminate cap. Owing to the evaporation of the liquid air it was necessary that the charge should be tired within ten minutes of the moment when the liquid was added ; but this, so far from being an objection, constitutes oik; of the greatest advantages of the new explosive, for if there should be a miss-fire from any cause it is only necessary to wait a while and the cartridge may bo dug out with perfect safety, for its explosive properties will have evaporated with the liquid air. The explosive is said to cost only one-tenth the price of dynamite, so that if it is in other respects as valuable as it is reported to be. it is to be hoped that the disadvantage mentioned mav be overcome.

AN AUTOMATIC RECORDER OF MUSIC. It, lias long been the dream of musicians to possess a musical instrument which should have the power automatically to "take down'' the notes of any extempore composition played upon it, and many have been the attempts of inventors to produce such an instrument. Possibly the principal bar to the success of such an undertaking is to be found in the somewhat barbaric system of musical notation which is universally in use. Under the name of the kromarograph, a new recordi ing instrument is described in the Scientific | American. It is controlled by electromagnets operated by contacts on the keys of an ordinary piano, and bringing to bear upon a travelling band of paper little inking rollers corresponding to every key struck. Continuous ruling rollers are also ! provided, which rule the paper with lines in sets of five, corresponding to the Liveline ruling of ordinary notation and to the ledger lines. The" white keys of the piano are represented by a double dash, and the black by a single dash of greater thickness, while the length of the "dashes indicates the duration of the notes. The printed record is believed to have sufficient resemblance to ordinary notation to be readily transcribable into the more familiar form; but it is obvious, after an inspection of the paper roll, that some considerable practice would be necessaiv before its precise significance could be recognisable at sight. The record does not differentiate between C sharp and i) tint, or between E sharp and F, but that is a condition with which only the most pedantic will quarrel. It is- left to the transcriber's knowledge of harmony to give each note its proper symbol and to indicate its true relation to the key.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY WIRK. Professor Korn, of the Munich University, has greatly improved his apparatus for transmitting photographs over telegraph wires. He has succeeded in sending photographs and sketches six or seven inches square in this manner from Munich to Nuremberg, a. distance of 100 miles, ',„ from ten to fifteen minutes. The professor says that precisely the same results would be obtained it the photographs were transnutted over a telegraph line of any length. ihe photograph whirl, has to be trans mitted is placed or, a transparent <dass cylinder, which revolves slowly and nt the same time moves from right to left { ray of light is thrown on the cylinder b'v means of an electric lamp and' lens-, ami when the ray of light reaches the interior of the cylinder it is brighter or darker .<- cording to the colouring of that particular part of the photograph over which it passes Inside the cylinder is some selenium' which transmits electrical current in „» portion to the intensity of the Ik'ht brought to hear on it/ The selenium transmits current more rapidly in bright light and less rapidly as the light de creases. Tile selenium is connected with the wire over which the photograph his to be transmitted. The receiving apmrV tus consists of an electrical Xernst lamp' placed inside a glass cylinder covered with sensitised paper. The lamp burns more or less brightly according to the varyinc current transmitted through the selenium at the other end of the wire. It finis reproduces the exact shade of the original photograph, provided that the cylinders at each end of the wire revolve at exactly the same speed. Professor Korn has invented a means of regulating the revolution of the cylinders so that the speed is identical at both ends. Further improvements to the apparatus will shortly enable a photograph to be transmitted within two minutes.