SCIENCE NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1676, 13 April 1904, Page 68 (Supplement)

SCIENCE NOTES.

RE-COLOURING THE NEGRO. The New Tork correspondent of the ‘‘Daily Telegraph” says: —Dr. J. W. Hill, of Indiana., is trying to prevent infants born of negro parent® from reverting to the old type of the coloured race. All arrangements have been completed for the solution of the colour scheme of the human race. An expectant negro mother lias consented to act as patient, and will I •carter the hospital as soon as the rooms | are finished in the manner necessary tor ; the scientific experiment. According to Dr. Hill, the negro's skin is more sensitive than chat of any other human being, and for that reason more pigment s thrown out to protect him. under the climatic conditions in which his ioraiatlierg were born, the intense heat of the tropics making tills necessary. By preventing pigmentation, D'r. Hill believes that the child of negro parents, which is generally horn white, turning darker under toe sun's rays, will become even whiter than the Caucasian race under red light. Nou_ acdiiic rays wifi be employed in making the experiment, the lpom will be completely furnished in red, the patient, the attending physicians, and the nurses will wear red gowns, while the only light will come through red-globed lamps. MARCH OF AN ANT ARMY. M. Coillard, a French missionary in the Barotse Valley of Central Africa, writes of the terrible soldier ant as follows: “One sees them busy in innumerable battalions, ranted and disciplined, winding along like a broad black ribbon of -watered silk. Whence come they ? where are they going? Hot lung can stop them, nor can any object change their route. If it is an inanimate ooyect. they turn aside and pass on. If it is living, they assail it venomously, crowding one on top of the other b> the attack, while the main army passes on, business-like- and silent. Is the obstacle a trench or a stream of water, them they form themselves at its edge into -a compact mass. Is- this a deliberate assembly? Probably, for soon the mass stins -and moves on,, crosses the trench or stream, and continues in its incessant and nuytorious march. A multitude of these soldiers are sacrificed for the co-m mon good, and these legions, which Kno w not what it is to be beaten, pass over the corpses of these victims to their destination," POWER OF SUGGESTION. At a meeting of the Rochdale and District' Medical Society, a p-aiper was read on “Functional Nerve Troubles." Everyone, said the speaker, was more or less susceptible to the influence of suggestion. In fact, any so-called voluntary action might be looked upon as the resultant of a complex series of suggestions. Among the cases instanced was one in - which a boy with a stiff and intensely tender elbow became perfectly Well after being’ under chloroform,, and told that he was better. Hysterical vomiting was averted in another case by the threat of a thrashing. SEEING TO 'THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. Miss Bacon (daughter of the balloonist) gave a lecture in Manchester lately, when she showed a number of interesting slides from photographs taken in a balloon. But the most interesting of the lantern views was one showing a photograph of the bottom of the sea taken from, a balloon. In November, 1902, the Admiralty gave Mr. Bacon facilities -to put to the test a theorv that the sea, if looked) down upon

from a sufficient height, miay be seen ; right to the bottom. If the theory proved to be correct, the Admiralty hoped that a - way would be opened of discovering the ! submarine boats of enemies- in time of j war. Mr. Bacon crossed the Irish Channel, and from a height not stated be saw | down to the bottom of the sea, and made j a photograph of the bed of the l ocean. ; If a submarine boat had happened to be ; in that particular part of our homo 1 seas it would no doubt have been shown i up by the photograph. j AN OBSTACLE 100 MILES IIiGII. j Shadows, according to Lord Rayleigh, are simply the results of placing obstacles in the path of some form of travelling disturbance, and are, therefore, to be Co-upd not only in the case of light, but also sound and heat. Tire reason that a •sound shadow is never noticeable like a light shadow, lies in the fact that whereas the wave length of an ordinary r|>te, say the middle C, is as much as four inches, that of a light wave is often less than ' one 10-1000 ch of an inch. In connection with this h, e referred to Marconi’s results in signalling across the Atlantic, and .-aid that the explanation of the feat was obscure, because from what we knew of shadows we should have expected that the waves would have passed only with difficulty round such an obstacle as was com s'tituted by the sea, which rose something like 100 miles above the straight line between the two points on each side. ANOTHER LONDON “TUBE." The completion of the Great Northern and City Railway marks another step in the progress- of the provision of proper transport facilities in London. The new “tube" does not differ much from its predecessors in the general features of its construction and electrical equipment. It is, however, the largest of all in diameter, being large enough to accommodate, ir necessary, the existing'rolling stock of the Great Northern Railway. Special precautions have been taken in the construction of the tunnel to guard against the risk of fire and to lessen the chances of vibration. The railway will be open to general traffic in a few weeks. It has taken just four years to complete; an extension of the line from Moor-gate Street to Lothbury is now in progress-. BETA LYRA AND NOVA PERSEI. At the Royal Institution the Rev. Walter Sid'g reaves, S.J., Director of the- Stonyhurst College Observatory, reported his studies of the -star Beta in the constellation Lyra. This object presents strange variations of light extending over 13 days, and Father Sidgreaves gave reasons for believing that this effect is caused by there being two stars revolving round one another in an elliptical orbit. By an extension of the same ingenious method of observation and reasoning he showed cause for thinking that in the famous neAV star of Perseus, Nova Persei. there had been a clash of worlds, producing intense heat and light, expansions' and contractions, and those marvellous phases through which the star passed. APPARENT SIZE OF THE MOON. Professor Pickering, in liisi book about “The Moon," says:—“The size of the moon, as seen by different persons, varies from that of a cart wheel to a silver dollar. To many it seems about a foot in diameter, from which Professor Young concludes that to the average man the distance of the surface of the sky is about 110 ft. It is certain that artists usually represent the moon much too large in size in their painting®. Occasionally they represent it in evening scenes with J .he

horns turned downward instead of upward, whereas they must always point away from the sun. The truly angular size of the moon is l about half a degree, so that it can always be concealed behind a lead pencil held at arm’s length." DEARTH OF WHALEBONE. According to the “Daily Telegraph," whalebone lias been recently sold in America for T 2900 per ton, while it is also asserted that T3OQO was paid for two and a quarter tons at Dundee, although there seems to be some degree of doubt attaching to the later statement. Soon after the middle of last century, the price of the commodity was as low as <£lso par ton, but. according to the late Frank Buckland. it suddenly leapt up to A 620 with the introduction" of the “crinoline’’ into ladies’ costumes, and it has apparently been on the rise ever since. TRAMWAYS AND DISINFECTION. An Italian scientist claims to have established that electric train ways are great mediums in the disinfection of towns. He points out, that the- electric spark, which is so frequent an occurrence to the overhead trolley, and the emission of light from the car wheel when the rail is used for the return current, transform the oxygen of the air into ozone, which lias a purifying and disinfecting influence. The high discharges, lie says, are frequent enough to influence greatly the atmospheric constituent®, especially where the line passes through narrow thoroughfares. They become antiseptic agents. VERY OLD BREAD. There is in the museum at Naples seme old bread, which was baked in August, A.D. 79, in one of those curious ovens still to be seen at Pompeii. More than 18 centuries, therefore, have elapsed since it was drawn “all hot" and indigestible from the oven. So it may claim to he the stalest bread in the world. In shape and size the leave® resemble the small cpttage loaves of England, but not in appearance, lor they are asi black as charcoal. which, in fact, they closely resemble. This was not their original colour, but they have become carbonised. NEW SUGAR PLANT. A plant which yields twenty times as much sugar as the beet or cane has been analysed at the Agricultural Institute of Paraguay. The sugar can be used for all culinary purposes, and its small bulk and weight commend it as a part of the soldier’s ration. The plant is a shrub less than a foot in height, and is known to botanists as Eupatorium rebandium, and belongs to the same natural order as rii© lpughwort or bones-et. MUST SEE THE SMOKE! There are very few blind people .vlio smoke. An old soldier, living in a North London suburb, had the misfortune to 'os© his sight during the Transvaal Avar. lie continued a feAV months to -enjoy the pipe of Avhioh he had been iso fond, but now he lias given up smoking’ altogether, saying that Avithout sight he gets no enjoyment whatever from his smoke. The insurances on the tAVO cruisers. Niseh.an and Kasuga, Avhich Avore taken from Genoa to Yokosuka, amounted to <£7so,Jf>o, and the underAvriters Aver© not sorry Avhen they heard of their arrival in safety. The ship Oamaru, Avhicli lias been Jaid up at Port Chalmers, has been thoroughly chipped and cleaned outside and in.