SCIENCE and INVENTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17459, 1 May 1920, Page 6 (Supplement)

SCIENCE and INVENTIONS.

■;'-■- : -; BUBBEB VEBSTJS CABPET3. /.' Rubber tile flooring is reported by manu- >- facturers to be a growing fashion. I' , ; ; makes unnecessary any such covering as : carpcta or linoleum, does away with noise in amusement resorts, and other public V buildings, and is. easy to keep clean. For \ the private house, tho comparatively high cost is. offset by great durability. A SCIENCE OP SMELL. The possibility of developing a " science of odours" is discussed by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. " Find out what an odour is—whether it is an emanation and therefore subject to being weighed, or a vibration, and therefore capable of bein* reflected. Odours are becoming more and more important in the worlds of scientificexperiment, and in medicine—and the need of more knowledge will bring forth more, knowledge, as surely as the sun shines. We arc accustomed to saying, ' Why, that odour's twice as strong as this one! But how strong is'anv odour? The answer to that query will make somebody famous. A SAPID STTJMP-BUBNER. . The aid method devised by the India.'« for removing stumps by fire may yet become popular if the recent successful experiments should prove readily applicable on a large scale, and according to experts the larger the scale the more economical is the proems. The method consists m packing about the stamps, spherical heat retainers, which are preferably made of burnt clay, although iron and other substances have been used successfully. A casing made of over-lapping sections encloses the heat retainers and acts as a flue. The heat retainers move inward during the process of burning tho stump. This movement is entirely automatic and is due to gravity, the spherical shape of the heat retainers aiding in the motion. COLD CAUSES STALE BREAD. The reason why bread becomes stale has been investigated recently by Professor J. R. Kate, of Amsterdam, who has discovered that the stateness is due to low temperatures, and not merely to loss of moisture. Ho found that if the temperature was maintained at 140 degrees Fahrenhe'.t, the bread was quite fresh at the end of 48 hours, but if the temperature was reduced to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. % certain amount of st&leness was discernible, the process becoming more rapid until the •temperature of about three degrees below freezing point was reached. Curiously enough, at lower temperatures than this, the degree of stateness is reduced, until ft a temperature of liquid, air the bread is tvgain perfectly fresh. On the strength of these experiments, it has been suggested that bread could bo kept fresh fill required for use by placing it in a tireless cooker immediately altar removal from the oven. NEW WONDEKS OF COAL. Almost incalculable waste- ha. occurred in past years in burning coal instead of coke in the metal-making industries and in wing-the bee-hive oven in the production of coke instead of the by-pro-ducts oven, one of man's moat wonderful significant victories of re-fining and recreating the earth's resources to meet the seeds of increasing population. For every ton of bituminous coal burnt in the oldfashioned oven, we lose about one-half tool— it in actual waste of coal, hi by-prodi-cts and in tbe resultant inferior ■ coke. In the more than lOOOdwj. centigrade of best in the by-Tjroducts oven, coal is completely carbonised by some of its own burning gases so that superior coke ia ' produced for use in iron and steel furnaces. Not only this, but the heat of the oven makes it possible to use the less expensins bituminous coals—those in which the volatile matter mav be run as b'gh as 30 at 55 per cent. This is ■> nraoaca that iras not possible in tbe bee-hive oven,