SCIENCE AND INVENTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1291, 26 November 1896, Page 12

SCIENCE AND INVENTION.

The 2Sew York Museum, Avhich already contains 55 meteoritic frag-

THE BIG METEORITE.

ments, has not yet succeeded in annexing the 40 ton aerolite which is lying on an island near Cape York, Greenland.

Lieutenant Peary has had to return withI out it. The machinery taken out for the purpose of tackling it proved too weak, and it had to be left behind till next year. It appears the natives have been using it for some time as a source of workable iron, and on that account the honesty of carrying it off without compensation is somewhat questionable. The least thing the Yankees can do is to ballast the vessel they sen I for it with pig iron, and leave a pile of the latter in place of the coveted specimen. New applications of the X rays are still being made. Dr Carl Brown

A NEW TEST OF DEATH.

has just discovered that they can be used as a test of death. Cases occur in which it is

desirable to put beyond doubt the fact that death has supervened, and some of the methods of doing so are uncertain, while others are objectionable. Dr Brown finds that a Rontgen photograph of a dead limb is easily distinguished from that of a living one. The muscular part of the former conies out decidedly darker. This is not the case a few hours only after death, but the difference becomes more and more perceptible as the tissue changes proceed. The same means should be available on this account, to determine with some nearness the time which has elapsed since death took place, an important matter sometimes in cases which become the subject of criminal investigation.

A New York and a San Francisco paper

have co-operated to carry out an experiment as to the transmission of a " war message " by relays of bicycle riders

A BICYCLE EXPRESS.

across the American Continent. The main object, of course, was to decide how quickly such a message could be conveyed by this means if need for it should arise. The distance from the starting point in San Francisco to the goal in New York is 3400 miles, and 220 cyclists, stationed at successive points on the route, were engaged in the experiment. The message was carried over that distance in 13 days, being at the average speed of 11 miles an hour, kept up day and night. A largo proportion of the journey being over the very worst of roads, and part of it up steep mountain passes, the experiment is regarded as not unsatisfactory. Whether or not it has any practical outcome, it is a feat worth recording.

Among the projected methods of reaching the North Pole, that which is

ANOTHER POLAR SCHEME.

now contemplated by Mr G. J. Gould, though not the most dashiag, is certainly the most practical and the most likely

to bo crowned with success. This is to build one by one a series of depots at accessible points, within moderately easy reach of each other, and stretching on as directly as possible to the 90th degree of north latitude. These depots "will be stocked with provisions and other necessaries of arctic travel, and so, from base to baso, thero can be no doubt that in time the desired goal would be reached. Mr Gould has just returned from an arctic voyage full of his purpose, and if he has tlie perseverance to carry out his scheme, as well as the enthusiasm to project it, he " has the monoy too."

An American Professor theorises to the effect that railway trains are

RAILWAY TRAINS AND THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH.

retarded when running west, and accelerated when running east, by the earth's rotation. The earth turns from west to east, and the professor holds that when a train is running with the swing it is helped

along, but kept back when running against it. He also believes that trains running north and south, with their sides to the swing, lose as much as two miles in 70 by their wheel flanges being pressed against the rails. From this comes the conclusion that what are intended to be "record" runs should be done from west to east.

Tin: Chinese patronise the electric telegraph, though they have

CHINESE TBLEGUAX'HY.

hitherto looked askance at the railway. A considerable number of wires traverse some of the busier districts.

At first an obstacle to the use of the wires presented itself which seemed hardly surmountable ; the Chinese language has no alphabet, the letters of which can be represented by a few variations of the " dot and dash." The language has only words, to represent each of which would demand a signal code containing many thousands of different signs. How was this difficulty o-ot over ? By a means very simple in conception, but rather clumsy in operation. A "series of signs was selected to represent the cardinal numbers, and a list of two or three thousand of the words most needed for correspondence was drawn up, and the words numbered consecutively. The sender telegraphs the numbers of the words, and the receiver, having the key volume beside him, translates the numbers into words before despatching the messago to its address.