SCIENCE NOTES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1675, 6 April 1904, Page 5 (Supplement)

SCIENCE NOTES

DENATURALISING ALCOHOL. With a view to reducing- the price of alcohol when used- for industrial, chemical, or technical purposes by reducing the import duty up6n it the Russian Imperial Government has offered a. prize of 50,000 roubles (about =-05000) to the person, whether Russian or foreigner, who shall discover a denaturalising substance to answer the following requirements : —-such denaturalising substance should not be of a nature to modify that of alcohol by rendering it unsuitable for use in. chemical or technical operations; it should not contain elements yielding caustic products, such as sulphur, phosphorus, arsenic, or the halogens, nor products which, after evaporation or burning’ of the alcohol, leave a solid mineral or organic residue calculated to injure the wicks or the metallic, parts of motors; the substance' should render the alcohol absolutely unfit for drinking, andi it should not have a suffocating or disagreeable l odour which would render its use inconvenient or dangerous l - in the household, the workshop, or tho factory; the substance should possess the specific properties of a denaturalising agent in a very high degree to allow of its use in minute quantities; its price' should be sufficiently moderate, in order that the process should not too perceptibly increase thei price of the alcohol. The denaturalisation- process which shall .obtain the prize becomes the property of the Imperial Russian Treasury. DEEPER COAL SEAMS MUST BE FOUND. At the meeting of the Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society, Professor A* Watts, of the University of Birmingham, pointed out how geology was more suited in many ways for practical teaching than some other sciences; how, for instance, our officers' in the late war would have avoided many of their regrettable blunders if they had possessed that "eye for a country’-’ which geology can best confer, and thereby many million pounds and thousands of lives’ would have been saved. He gave his reason's for thinking that our visible coal supply was coming rapidly to an end, but said that there was great probability that there existed a deeper * coal supply with which we were not yet acquainted, and ! that it was the province of the geologist to discover. He argued that enormous sums of money would; be saved if this task of discovery were! undertaken. early, and by competent men. The reaching of this new area of coal would postpone for centuries exhaustion of our .best source cf energy- with which we were now threatened. gWAS MOUNT SINAI A VOLCANO? ‘i(i Was Mount Sinai a volcano? Professor iHeiinann Gunkel. of • Berlin, asks lithe question in a German review, and! it in the affirmative. He bases f his argument on various incidents! set cut in the Old; Testament. .Thus, faodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a rain of fire and ashes. Again,' in E'xodus we ate told that a black cloud , hung over the mountain; thunder and lightning appeared and the o-ld mountain stirred. Other instances of the kind, airpointing to volcanic action, occur in Deuteronomy and elsewhere. Taking them " together, the Professor considers that Sinai.,, was an. active volcano, towards which Moses led his people, who saw in th© fury of an eruption the expression, of the wrath of Heaven. On these grounds it is-suggested that.- in order to make certain of the exact position in which Mouht Si-nai is to'be' found; geographers and.geologists should set to work to point out ; the precise whereabouts) of any now extinct volcanoes which may have been still active, in the time of Mose. HOW' ALUMINIUM WAS FOUND, Aluminium is found in clay, felspar, date, and in other minerals and rocks. ’Prior to its discovery by a chemist nam-

ed Wohler (a German), it had been known to exist, but the difficulty was to obtain it from natural sources. This difficulty was overcome by W ohler move by accident than design. He had' just-been-mixing some chloride of aluminium and sodium together, and, not requiring tho compound at the moment, put it aside on a stove. Presently he picked it up, when, to his agreeable surprise, ho found that be had obtained' the metal in minute globes or beads', through, ‘he compound having become healed. At the present day (sayg, the “Model Engineer-’) it seems feasible to suppose that the period is not far distant when aluminium. will oust iron, load, and copper from their present high pcsifion in the world of metals. THE! SEVEN AGES OF MAN. Physiologists divide the whole. period of life Horn infancy to eld age in seven p-sriodp oil ages. They (according io “Health'’) arc infancy, childhood, boyhood of girlhood, adolescence' manhood or womanhood, age. auid old age. The. first aye lasts: from, birth till the second or third year, when the first dentition is over. Tne second lasts until the end of the second dentition--namely, the seventh or eighth year. The third lasts until the age of puberty, being in lire female from: io to 15; in the male at about 13. Tho fourth lasts from puberty until development and growth of the body have finished. The fifth period lasts in the fe male from the twentieth, to the lortyfiitk or fiftieth year, in the male it lasts from the twenty-fourth to tire fiftieth year. Age lasts until the sixty-third year, when old age commences NOBODY QUITE DEAF. Dr. Marrage publishes* a series of observations on the artificial development and measuremcat cf tho sense of hearing in deaf mute subjects. A considerable number cf cases were experimented on, a vowel-syren producing the sounds on, o, a., e, i, being adopted for the purpose, and curves were drawn showing the intensity of sound audible to the patients at different stage®• of the treatment. as measured by the air pressure necessary to render the sounds of the syren audible. The author maintains that there are but few subjects' who are deaf and dumb, beyond l all cure, and that the use of the syren wilt often restore the power cf hearing* even in cases of complete deafness, usually within about six week,?. The sounds, so far from being fatiguing or painful to the subjects, appear to give them genuine pleasure. PROTECT! VE MIMICRY. A remarkable and interesting instance of protective mimicry in fishes is to bo observed in the Marbled Angler cf iaaragassp Sea (Pterophryns Hisu-io). This fish, which is a poor swimmer, hag its chief haunts’ among the coral wcoda, which it closely resembles. Curiously enough, it constructs a nest of weeds, which is- held together by threads, and isi about the size of two’ closed fists. This nest it fills with eggs, scatteredthrough, its mass. The coral weeds aro a singularly safe asylum for it, for not only does it resemble them in. form and colour, having cutaneous filaments about its body and: fins, and & colouring 1 of pale yellow with dark brown bands, but it is-, besides, covered, with small white specks in mimicry of the minute smells (spiralis) with which the Saragasso weed is frequently covered. ATMOSPHERIC AIR ? Surrounding the earth on all sides, and reaching far above the highest mountains, and also filling the deepest cavities, there is an invisible ocean of gas or vapour, which is sometimes called the atmospheric air. It is l a mixture of gases- kept from flying into space by the force of ifieiriiestrial gravity, and thus shares in all movements of rotation and revolution of the solid globe. From what we know it appears impossible to assign any limit whatever to its height—if by that wet moan the height at which we should cease to find the gases of which it is composed—-but it has been variously estimated; to be from 45 to 212 miles-. It is in this region that many wonderful phenomena of nature takes place, such as rain, thunder, lightning, winds, storms, etc. —“The Science and Art of Mining.’’ A BONA-FIDE! METEORITE. At a meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal at Calcutta on December 2, Mr T l . H. Holland ehibited a meteorite which ■ fell with the meteor seen in Eastern Bengal on October 22. The stone weighs 622 grammes, and 1 isi covered with a thin black crust formed by the fusion of the rock during its,, grapid flight through the air. Several pstones were known to have fallen wifch|thisi meteor, and the complete in vesting lit with fused crust of the one exhibited shows that fusion, of .the surface occurred after .the break-up ..of the meteorite. Besides the complete proof that the meteor resulted in an actual, fall of stones, special intereslfc attaches to tjhisi occurrence on account of the observations made from so many points of view permitting the actual path and -speed of the object to be calculated. RADIUM AS A REMEDY. Dr. Tracey, of the New York Health Department, who has been for some time past making extensive experimental work with radium, now 1 believes that radium fluid taken internally mayfiwork a revolution in the treatment of tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid, and other infectious and. protozoal diseases. r.- 5