SCIENCE GOSSIP.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1261, 30 April 1896, Page 11

SCIENCE GOSSIP.

HOUSELESS CARRIAGES. A company has been formed to place ( horseless carriages on the streets in Paris 1 for hire. Should the sanction of the authorities be given, a beginning will be made with 100 cabs. With one or two exceptions, the new vehicles will be allowed to take their stand on the cab ranks, whilst they will also bo subjected to the usual police regulations. If the venture proves a success, the company 1 proposes raising the number of carriages to 1000. THE KINEMATOGRAPII. , The kinenmtograph of Messrs A. and , L. Lumicro is constructed on tho same ’ principle as Edison’s kinetoscope, that of taking instantaneous photographs in rapid succession of a moving object or group of objects, and throwing the pictures so taken on a screen in tho same order and with a similar rapidity. The result is to give the r spectator tho impression of a moving or living picture of the object or scene treated. The inventors of tho kinematoI graph, however, claim to have simplified the process and improved the effect. To produce the effect with Edison's instrument tho eye must receive 30 impressions per second, but with tho Lumiero’s 15 , impressions suffice, while the continuance of tho pictorial representation on the screen is nearly doubled in length. At a ( recent exhibition of tho kinematograph ! pictures of a burning house from catching fire to extinction, street scenes, A'c., are said to have been successfully shown. HOW TO WALK UPSTAIRS. > “ There are but very few persons who know how to walk upstairs properly," says an American physician. “ Usually a person will tread on the ball of his foot ’ in taking each step, springing himself up to tho next stop. This is very tiresome and wearing on the muscles, as it throws the entire suspended weight of tho body on tho muscles of tho legs and feet. You should, in walking or climbing stairs, seek for tho most equal distribution of the 1 body’s weight possible. In walking upstairs your feet should be placed squarely down on the step, heel and all, and then tho work should bo performed slowly and deliberately. In this way there is no strain upon any particular muscle, but each one is doing its duty in a natural manner. Tho man who goes ' upstairs with a springing step you may ! be sure is no philosopher, or, at least, his reasoning has not been directed to that subject." THE FORE-SCENT OF RATS. 1 Sailors have an idea that rats will forsake a doomed vessel, and several 1 curious instances, tolerably well authenticated, have been reported of tho rats leaving a vessel which afterwards came to disaster. It is a well-known fact that 1 rats frequently desert a house about to fall, and mines which are on a point of caving in. Miners have often been warned of coming disaster by tho flight of the rats, and have left tho mine in time to escape tho impending accident. In both these cases it is probable that tho rats were frightened by the settling of tho beams of the house or of the pillars and earth in the mines. It is possible (hat their senses are much more acute than those of men, and the noise made by the settling of tho earth and rocks in a mine would be observed by them long beforo it would bo perceptible to the miners. SUICIDAL INSECTS. A short time ago, Mr Henry, a Frenchman, being curious to see the effects of benzine upon wasps, put some of it under a glass in which one of those insects was imprisoned. The wasp immediately exhibited signs of great annoyance and anger, darting at a piece of paper which had introduced the benzine into its cell. By and by it seemed to have given up the unequal contest in despair, for it lay down j upon its back, and bending up its abdo- . men, planted its sting thrice in its body, j and then diod. Mr Henry allowed his j scientific interest to overcome ins : humanity so far as to repeat the expeiii mont with three wasps, only to find that j the two others acted in tho sumo manner, j He is, therefore, of the opinion tha! wasps j under desperate circumstances, commit i su.oidc. — iScicntiJic American, I PRESERVING WOOD. A simple, effective, and cheap way of preserving wood from decay is practised in Switzerland in the preparation of posts for the telegraph service. A square tank, having a capacity of some 200 gallons, is supported at a height of 20ft or 25ft above the ground by means of a light skeleton tower built of wood. A pipe (Irons from the bottom of tho tank to within* 30in of the ground, where it is connected with a cluster of flexible branches, each ending with a cap having an orifice in the centre. Each cap is clamped on to the larger end of a pole in such a manner that no liquid can escape from the pipe, except by passing into the wood. The poles are arranged parallel with one another, sloping downwards, and troughs run under both ends to catch drippings. When all is ready, a solution of sulphate of copper, which has been prepared in tho tank, is allowed to descend tho pipo. Tho pressure produced by tho fall is sufficient to drive the solution, gradually, of course, right through the poles from end to end. When the operation is ended, and the posts dried, the whole of the fibre of the wood remains permeated with the preserving chemical a