Science Notes.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 998, 17 April 1891, Page 6

Science Notes.

A Cincinnati child has been reclaimed from idiocy by the operation of craniatomy.' Foreign Powers are about to adopt the electrical welding method of making shells for their artillery. The acreage of the Zoological Gardens in Europe ranges from about half a dozen to half a hundred acres, but hai-dly one of them has room enough for its animals. In the Wheatstone automatic method of telegraphy, when transmitting at the rate of 600 words a minute, there are 33,600 currents per minute sent out, each having a duration not exceeding *OO2 of a second. * The ‘ manna ’ which fell from the sky in Asia Minor last August and was baked into bread, has recently been examined by men of science, and is identified as a lichen belonging to the family Lecanora esculenta. The destructive effects upon the forests of the present demand for timber for making railway ties, is shown by the fact that this material is now largely cut from trees that will make only one tie, or at least only one tie from a cut. A well-known embalmer, Dr Vickersheimer, has produced a liquid so perfect that it can be applied successfully to game. An embalmed hare served after having been shot six weeks, was recently pronounced to be as good as fresh. Just as stone has taken the place of wood, so may steel supplant stone and iron. Structures of steel of forty or fifty stories may not he any more remarkable twenty years hence than a ten-storied edifice was a generation ago. At Rawil-Pindie, India, there was recently a ‘ locust block ’ on the railway line which lasted several hours, and so lubricated the track that for two or three days afterwards extra engines were required to draw the trains over the sections affected. The New York physicians testify that 75 per cent of the throat diseases of that city among children are due to ill-ventilated school-rooms. This is a pretty heavy schooltax, and is worth figuring up in all large American cities. The Indian Medical Journal reports the case of a monkey which got hold of a family medicine case aud swallowed 750 of Count Mattei’s cancer specific pills, one of which is intended to be dissolved in a quart of water, of which a teaspoonful is a dose. The monkey is as lively as ever. Ths electrical Engineer holds that the problem of obtaining light without heat is now one of such immediate moment, and the pecuniary rewards consequent upon a successful solution of the problem is so great that the energies of inventors can be bent in no better direction than this. American women are said to rank highest both as to the number and importance of their inventions. The Philadelphia woman who invented the barrel-hooping machine added 20,000d01a a year to her income. The Eureka street-sweeper is a woman’s invention; so is the device for abating the running noise on elevated railroads, and so, also, a horse shoeshoeing machine that turns out 1,200 finished shoes ifa an hour. A stalwart young man at Leavenworth, Kan., recently accepted a wager that he could not stand a quart of water dropped into his open hand, drop by drop, from a height of three feet. Before 500 drops had fallen into his hand he almost cried with pain and said he had enough. After a little water had fallen each drop seemed to crush his hand, and a blister in the centre of it was the result. An English engineer has designed, and is now manufacturing, a portable cross-cut saw, that is, a large two-man saw, that can be folded up into small compass. It is really a flexible chain of saw teeth riveted together. When folded up it can be put into a case 8 inches long, 4. inches wide, 1§ inches thick. Its weight is only 2£lbs. The saw is designed for the use of surveyors, explorers, and others, to whom portability is an important consideration. The question as to whether rain can be produced by artificial means is to be tested by the United States Government. On the motion of Senator C. B. Farwell, of Illinois, a clause was added to the Appropriation Bill which provides that, under direction of the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, 2000 dollars shall be expended in experiments, having for their object the artificial production of rainfall by the explosion of dynamite. Mr W. Hopton, of St. Helens, has jußt invented what is called a * hurricane airproducer,’ for the ventilation of mines, See. Mr Hopton considers that one of these appliances, 12ft wide, by 15ft diameter, and revolving 60 strokes per minute, will produce double the quantity of air any fan or furnace has ever given. A continuous stream of air flows from eight places in the circumference of the producer as it revolves, and increases in power with the increase in the number of revolutions. The inventor claims that his machines can obtain the air freely, with little drag or frictional resistance, and that one apparatus is capable of producing 600,000 cubic feet per minute.