SCIENCE NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 2320, 18 August 1898, Page 48

SCIENCE NOTES-

— Drs Letulle and Ribard, of Paris, have developed, Lr the treatment of disease, a method which they call " krymo therapy/' As n&ed in phthisis their method is described as follows in La, Presse Medicale (Paris): — "Their plan is to apply, during about half an hour every morning, a bag containing about two kilogrammes of solid carbonic acid to the epigastric and hepatic- regions. The skin is protected by a thick layer of cotton wool, and maintains a temperature of about — 25deg C. I"— l3deg F.]. A second application precedes the evening meal. The temperature of solid carbonic acid is about — SOdeg C. [— 112deg F.I. Pictet, who first experimented on men and doga with extremely low temperatures, thought that for temperatures below— 6odes> C. |— 76deg P.I the diathermancy of even bad conductors of heat is so much increased that the rays traverse Ihem like light passes through glass. Pictet, of Paris, and Chassat and Cordes. of Geneva, treated cases by the cold of the,ir ' frigoric pits.' Letullo and Ribard prefer the above mentioned method, and think that some organs, such as the liver, are cooled more than others by the cold. The organism lias to resist the cooling process, and the result is an increase of nutritive changes, a burning up of old materials, an absorption of new materials, and an increase of appetite corresponding to the increased digestive vigour."

— A French chemist, M. Charles Henry, has lately succeeded in manufacturing a kind of paper, without pigments, by a process founded on the well-known operations of extinguishing certain of the coloured rays which go to make up white light. — This paper, which is of a changing nature, is made by coating the surface of it with a thin film of turpentine, or rectified benzine, having a little gum damar or judean bitumen dissolved in it. When the composition becomes dry, it forms a transparent glaze, and so, acting like a soap bubble, gives rise to a variety of fleeting hues.

— The Berlin correspondent of the Times has given some particulars of a new invention by one Carl Wegener, which has for its object the elimination of smoke from a furnace, accompanied by a notable saving in the consumption of coal. This invention, we are told, is shortly to be brought before the British public in the form of the usual limited company. The success of the system depends upon feeding the furnace with powdered coal, instead of the "well-screened" lumps which have hitherto been regarded as the most advantageous form of such fuel. The coal dust is fed' into the fire from a container in front by means of a tube which terminates m a revolving sieve. Thu? sieve is kept in motion by the draught, and has the effect of scattering the fuel over the furnace in such a way that it is at once inflamed without smoke, and with very little ash. Coal of comparatively low quality can be economically u.«ed in this powdered form, and the only drawback to the process seems to be the necessity for using a separate machine for the grinding oi the coal to powder. On the other hand, the slack or dust which forms a necessary byproduct of the coal industry will find here a field for employment which will be much appreciated by owners of mines and merchants generally. A writer in Knowledge makes a vivid picture of the great belt of clouds, some 300 miles in breadth, which surrounds the earth a little north of the equator. Within this belt rain almost incessantly falls, sonietimes m sheets, and the wind seldom stirs. Before the invention of steamships, vessels becalmed in the "cloud belt" sometimes drifted helpless for weeks. Even now, the crossing of this belt, where everything is surcharged with moisture, 'is a disagreeable experience for voyagers going from the North to the South ' Atlantic Ocean, or vice versa. The belt can be traced across equatorial Africa and across the American isthmus, and the great rivers Amazon, Orinoco, Niger, Nile, and Congo ayise in these ram-soaked regions, which are like exhausfcless reservoirs. The cause of the equatorial cloud belt is connected with the tradewinds, and in the course of a year it- oscillates north and souUi over n distance equal to about three times its own breadth.