SCIENCE and INVENTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17145, 26 April 1919, Page 3 (Supplement)

SCIENCE and INVENTIONS.

: CONCRETE FURNITURE., .. Suitable woods being a'Paris firm claims .to have Seen successful in making furniture out of reinforced concrete. The , result is < olaimed to be excellent. Almost any .article can be made, " and,' whether desk, chair, or table, it looks like a higMr lacquered piece of furniture. Moreover, it is not heavy. English manufacturers also have been.experimenting, and at least one firm is, opening a factory near London. WHEN TBS ENGINE HISSES FIRE. One of the causes of a motor-car's engines missing explosions,, which is sometimes very mysterious, may be water in the carburetor. If other causes of skipping have been eliminated, try draining the. carburetor. If some is caught- in the hand the water will be repelled by the gasoline and form globules.. - . • FROZEN YARN. A curious defect of paper yarns and fabrics is their "liability to damage by freezing. The yarn may contain 70 to 80 per cent, of moisture by weight, and if this is suddenly frozen the cohesion of the individual fibres, is greatly lessened. The fabric may even be totally destroyed, its strength, and elasticity being at best much affected. Yarn in which ice has formed must' be thawed slowly .but' thoroughly before weaving. V' UNDER-WATER WIRELESS. : Experiments were conducted 'in the United States during the war with an invention for receiving wireless messages under the water. Submarines under water can intercept _radio signals sent from the shore, and with credo apparatus a scientist has succeeded in transmitting signals two miles from a submerged wire, simulating a submersible. Officials say it is possible, although not yet. an accomplished fact, that water sending can be developed to a considerable extent. ELECTRIC LETTER OPENER. A,machine which opens envelopes in, a continuous stream is the last word in electrical appliances for the office." Driven by a l-20th horse-power electric motor, the envelo|ie-opener has oponed 73,000 letters a wo/king day of eight hours. The envelopes to be opened are placed on a feed table in batches of about fifty, and they are fed through one at a time by means. of two rubber rollers which pass them along past two cutting edges. The depth of the cut may be varied at will, and there is absolutey no danger of cutting the contents of the envelope, so fine is tno cut. NEW LIFEBOAT DESIGN/ By applying the general design of the submarine to & lifeboat, an inventor baa recently evolved a' most serviceable form of craft The boat is covered overhand in general appearnce is'suggestive of a email submarine. It is provided with conning-tower and a hatch, as well as a mast and sails- .Besides being unsinhable, this lifeboat is non-capsizable, and non-swampahle. The boat has demon, strated its complete utility by crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 87 days during mid-winter, which not only speaks volumes for its navigating properties" but demonstrates how the occupants are guaranteed against exposure. ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS. Considerable attention is now being devoted to the use of electrified ,eee la. It will be adopted on a very large scale in England for next year's harvest. The process is very simple in principle, though it requires a good deal of care and of experience in carrying it out. A current oil electricity cannot bo passed through a heap , of dry seed; the grain must be steeped in water that contains, in solution, some : salt that will act as a conductor. Such a ; solution is placed in a tank, the seed is stepped in it, and a weak current of electricity is passed by means of electrodes of : lane surface attached to two opposite em' walls of tho tank. The seed is then taken out and dried. NICKEL COOKING UTENSILS. A recent suggestion of cooking utensils of pure nickel bids fair to be a valuable and an important one. This metal has many striking point/* in its favour. Pure solid nickel should not be confounded with the much inferior metals usually sold as nickel,, which consist of steel, brass or German silver with a thin plating of nickel. Tnis plating wears off in a short time, leaving manufactured articles unserviceable and worthless. Pure nickel, on the other Tisfnd, does not rust or oxidise, and consequently every danger of poisoning generally caused by verdigris is eliminated. Neither will the metal tarnish and, even though the sur- • face be injured, there is no danger of corrosion resulting as in a plated article.

AN AUTOMATIC U&HTSHIP. ! An ingenious automatic lightship, requiring no attention whatever when onca set in motion, has been built by a British firm. In its two steel tanks, sufficient gas' can be stored to supply the vessel for several months. Experiments have shown that the light may be depended upon to burn continuously for months at a time without any attention whatever. The approximate duration of the light can always be pre-determined, and there is no danger whatever of the light being extinguished either by wind or spray._ The light is visible at a distance of eight to twelve miles. The lightship also boasts of a bell, which is made to ring automatically by means; of a highly ingenious device which utilises tha gas as it passes from the tanks, to the lantern to actuate the bell clapper.

SALVING SHIPS BY MAGNET. It is anticipated that the sub-sea magnet—invented in Japan— play no small part in salving ships sunk during the war. Certain salvage engineers state that not only will the exact location of a sunken vessel be indicoted by these magnets, but that the vessel herself will actually be brought to the surface by the same means. According to this scheme, a sunken vessel would be raised by means of a number of these electric sub-sea magnets, each being capable of lifting as much as 150 tons. These magnets would be operated from small salvage steamers, probably one boat to each magnet. Having located a sunken vessel, these steamers would be arranged in the necessary positions over the spot where she lay. The magnets, having been electrically energised from their respective steamers, would then be placed against the steel sides of the ship. The powerful cables attaching the magnot to steamer above would be slowly wound up by means of a special low-geared windings-drum.

ELEOTRIO WELDING. For many years the high temperature, of the flames of hydrogen and acetylene, when burned with oxygen, have been employed for metal cutting and welding, and thus a tool of great importance has been added to the already very widely-assorted stock of the engineer. Simultaneously, however, the high temperature of the electric arc has not been overlooked, and electric welding has been 6teadily progressing, and, says the London Daily Telegraph, this by no means new art is about to be very largely extended in the proposed application to shipbuilding. The process has been subjected to close research, and i vessels' of several types have been constructed and put into commision. This application Of welding provides an efficient substitute for the tedious process of rivetting, which constitutes so large a part of ship construction. It is estimated to effect a 6aving of 60 per cent, over rivetting on the minor parts of > vessel, while on the hull plating a conservative estimate fixes the saving at 25 per cent. It may also be noted that, with improved methods of electric welding many new applications will be forthcoming in other • branches of engineering, as the process is 1 applicable to some non-ferrous metals, such as copper, brass and bronze.