SCIENCE NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 964, 22 August 1890, Page 7

SCIENCE NOTES.

It has been shown that a grod way to purify the air of a room by the production of ozone is to generate Bparks from a small electrical machine, and Dr Otto Fleming, of Philadelphia, has introduced a domestio apparatus for tho purpose. Messrs Uag.ie, of the Monkwearmouth Ropery, are about to make a steel wiro rope nearly four miles in length for colliery haulage purposes. The rope will be 3jin in oi cumference, and will weigh from 12 to 14 tons. Messrs Haggle believe this will be the largest haulage rope in use. Its breaking strength will be about 30 tons. Reoent trials of the Peral submarine boat appear to have given great satisfaction to the Spanish naval authorities. The boat was sunk to a depth of 10 metres, and travelled for an hour and five minutes along the course prescribed by the admiral who directed the operations. She sank and rose at any required speed, and discharged a torpedo without being visible. The melting-point of gold is now determined by the pyrometer of Le Ohatelier. It consists of a small thermo-couple composed of platinum and platinum-rhodium contacts which are exposed to the heat of the oupelor crucible in which the gold is fused. The couple is connected to a dead-beat D’ Arsonval galvanometer, and the temperature of the melting point, by exciting a ourrent in the oouple, is indicated on the galvanometer* At a meeting of the Royal Society of Edin burgh, Dr R. H. Mill read a paper in which he calculated from the latest surroundings and the heights of the continents that If the inequalities of the earth’s crust were levelled the mean contour of the lithosphere thus produced would be at a depth of 1700 fathoms under the level of the sea. The contour sounding of 1700 fathoms is, therefore, in bis opinion, that which divides the surface of the globe into two equal spaces, one of elevation and the other of depression! A Munich firm has made a carriage which is propelled by gas generated from benzine or analogous material. The motor, which is not visible from the outside, is placed in the rear of a thrce-wheeled carriage over the ma n axle, and the benzine used in its propulsion is carried in a closed copper receptacle secured under the seat, from which it passes drop by drop, to the generator. The speed of the motor is absolutely under control and can be regulated by pressing a lever. A speed of about ten miles an hour can be attained. Touching the question of testing for cob. urblindness by means of woollen hanks of different shades and hues, Professor Oliver Lodge makes the very sensible suggestion that the attention of specialists should be directed to the ‘ colour box ’ of Lord Rayleigh, F.R.S , which furnishes a less crude means of investigating the colour sense. By the ‘ colour box ’ (which was originally invented by the late Clerk Maxwell) colours are easily compounded from their elementary constituents. Thus a given yellow can be matched in the box by blending certain proportions of red and green. Modern physiologists, says a Berlin corre spondent of the London Lancet, regard the pre-frontal part of the brain as the seat of character and intellect. After the removal of this part in dogs and monkeys, no paralysis of any musoles or loss of sensibility occurs, but singular changes in the behaviour, emotions and characters of the heart have been observed. They become livelier, restless, impatient, iriitable, quarrelsome, and violent. Their movements seem purposeless, and their attention to what is going on around them, and their intelligence, are diminished. These observations have been oonfirmed by similar phenomena in the case of human beings. An ingenious calculator finds that, assuming the world’s population to be 1,300,000,000, and the average weight of each person to be 1251 b, or nearly 9 stone, the whole population of the world might be placed upon one square mile if stacked to a height of 93 feet. The whole mass of humanity would only cover 59,697 acres to one foot of depth, so that the little county of Rutland with its 95,360 acres would hold it all at that depth, and have about one-third of its area to spare for interspaces. Or, assuming the whole population of the world to be gathered in a standing crowd, each individual occupying a square foot of surface, the whole could stand on an area one third that of Rutlandshire. It is a well known fact in biology that bacteria and bacilli absorb aniline and perish by it; hence two German investigators, Herren Stilling and Wortmann, have tested violet aniline (methyl violet) on rabbits and guinea pigs, curing eye disorders due to baoteria. A skin-ulcer on a ohild was ajso healed by dropping a little aniline solution on the sore, after the ordinary antiseptics had failed. Eye diseases, and wounds or sores, developing suppuration were also sterilised in the same way ; and it is thought that certain cases of internal inflammation, such as pleuritis and peritonitis, may not be beyond the reach of the remedy. Every sea-going passenger steamer or emigrant ship mast have a proper supply of lights inextinguishable in water and fitted for attachment to life-buoys. At present, however, a good deal of time is lost in attaching these lights to the buoy, and in pricking the • canister that contains the inflammable mixture, which blazes up when the sea-water reaches it. It is, therefore, advisable to find a ready means of dis» charging the buoy with its canister, for otherwise a person might drown before tho buoy reached him. Messrs Manwell and Glen have introduced a device by which on the half-turn of a handle, occupying a fraction of a second, the buoy and oanister aro cast adrift. It has been adopted by the Atlantic Transport Line of steamers, and is under the consideration of the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House,