SCIENCE NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2400, 1 March 1900, Page 58

SCIENCE NOTES.

— Can Life be Chemically Produced? — The experiments by Professor Jacques Loeb, of the University of California, were performed during the last summer and autumn. Professor Norman, of Texas University, had already shown that the eggs of certain marine animals, when fertilised, had a tendency to develop when &odium or magnesium was added to the sea water in which they were. Following this out, Professor Loeb began experiments with the sea-urchin, a common marine animal, the male and female of which, as of fishes, are separate individuals. The -unfeitilised eggs of this animal Professor Loeb subjected to a solution of sodium and magnesium, and within two hours they hatched, producing "blaslufe," or the first larvaa. Placed in normal sea water, these developed into "gastrulee" and then into "plutei," the latter bearing the same relation to a seaurchin as a tadpole to a frog. Further experiments convinced the scientist that only the presence of calcium and potassiun in the sea water prevented the development of all unfertilised eggs, and that all the milt deposited by the male needed to do was to overcome the effect of these chemicals. Professor Loeb's announcement of his experiments, and the belief to whioh he is forced, practically establishes a now theory of the reproduction of species. According tr this, the union of two elements is not necessary for reproduction, but any cell may divide and reproduce. This throws at once what may be a, most important light on the subject of cancers and of dermoid cysts. It becomes possible, and, indeed, almost unavoidable of belief, that these are abnormal attempts at reproduction, due to local lack of that chemical element necesnary to restrain the cells from dividing and developing. Scientists at Wood's Holl have taken up this side of the question with eagerness, and are making experiments to find in how large measure this is true, and whether it may not lead to the discovery of a cure. Professor Loeb is quoted as making to a reporter the following statement regarding his work: — '"'The development of the unfertilised egg, that is an assured fact. I believe an immaculate conception may be a natural result of unusual but natural causes. The less a scientist feays about that now the better. It is a wonderful subject, and, in many ways.. ftix awful jane, Thai tb© bujnan

specie; ! may be made arrificJaUy to reproduce io-jelf by the vithdravaJ of chemical restraint by olher than natural means is a matter we do r>ot like to contemplate. But we have drawn a ccreat btep nearer to the chemical Ihsoiy of life, and may already c cc ahead of uc the ctay when a scientist experimenting with chemicals in a test *übc, may see them unne and form a substance which shall live and move and reproduce itsglf. It will bo the first protoplasmic cell, t'.e origin of all life, which was produced in the test tube of Nature ages ago by the union, in the coiirse of the world's evolution, of the same chemical substances with which he will have worked."

— Phytoecology, as a word, is not long, as scientific terms go, and the Greek that lies back of it barely suggests the meaning o f the term, a fact not aL all peculiar to the present instance. ' Of course, it had to do with plants, and is therefore a branch of botany. In the older botany the 'plant alone in itself was the subject of study. The newer botany takes the vjlant in its surroundings and all that its relationships to other plants may suggest as the subject for analysis. In the one case, the plant wad all and its place of growth accidental, a dried specimen from any unknown habitat was enough; but now the environment and the numerous lines of relationship that reach out from the living plant in situ are the maior subjects for study. The former was field bolany, because the field contained the plant ; the latter is field botany in that the plant embrace? in its study all else in the field in which it lives. The one had as its leading question : What is your name, and where do you belong in my herbarium? while the other raises an endless list of queues, of which: How came you hare, and when? Why these curious glands and this strange movement or mimicry? are but average camples. Every spot of colour, bend of leaf, and shape of fruit lviseb a question. The collector of 50 years ago pulled up or cut off a portion of his plont ijr a specimen, and rarely mea-.ured, weighed, or counted anything about it. The phytoecologist to-day watches his subject as it grows, and if removed it is for the purpose- of testing its vital functions i^i'ler varying circumstances of moisture, heat, or sunlight, and exact recording instruments are a part .of the equipment for the investigation. The underlying thouaht in the seashore school and the tropical laboratory in botany is this of getting nearer to the haunts of the living plant. Forestry schools that have for their classrooms the wooded mountains and the botanical gardens with their living herbaria are welcome steps toward the same end of phytcecolcgy. — Popular Science Monthly.

—An artificial stone from Belgium lie>s recently been introduced into the French market, which is said to have four times the force of resistance of French freestone, and which has nearly all the properties of Cobestang granite. Consul Atwell, of Roubaix, states that it has been tried in the Malines Arsenal, and is found to be insensible to the action of cold, absorbs only 6 to 7 per cent, of water, even after a long, dry spell, and cannot be crushed under a pressure of 40 kilogrammes (88F | to the square centimetre (square centimetre equals .155 square inch). This artificial slone is manufactured al Uecles, near Brussels, in the following manner : —Eighty parts of extremely clean and dry coarse sand are mixed with 50 parts of hydraulic lime reduced to a fine dry dust ; this mixture is put into an iron box, which is plunged into a boiler of water, and this is hermetically closed. During 72 hours the cooking goes on under a pressure of six atmospheres, the temperature being maintained at 155deg. At the end of this time the iron box contains a perfect homogeneous mass of stone, which rapidly hardens upon exposure to the air. The most varied colours are given to this stone, and its manufacture costs only one .penny per cubic foot.

— A Michigan company proposes to carry a ourrent of 40,000 volts 90 miles, to Allegan, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and Jackson, the last named of which is 90 mileb from the dam. In the plant of the Southern California Power Company, built to carry electricity to the city of LoSj, Angeles from a dam in the Santa Ana River above Redlands, a current of 33,000 volts is carried 81 miles. The Kalamazoo Electric Company was organised two years ago for the purpose of converting the power of the Kalamazoo Eiver into electrical energy and transmitting it to the surrounding towns. A dam has been built that will give a head of 32ft, it being operated now at 19ft. The lines to Kalamazoo, over 20 miles away, and to Allegan, nearly five miles from the dam, have been completed, and are in operation, at present at a pressure of 25,300 volts. The voltage will be increased to 40,000 when the line to Jackson is completed, so that the talk about snatching the laurels from Southern California may be premature. The clam is provided with all modern improvements. There are eight turbines of the Leffel horizontal pattern, aggregiting 3000 h.p. The geneiator is a thrce-phaae alternating current dynamo of an improved type. Its voltage on full load is 2300, and its rated capacity in ampere? on each phase is 377. Its rated horse-power is 2500, but the eleclrical ratings would indicate more power than that, and in the tests the machine showed up well under a load of 2700 h.p. There are three mommoth transformers, 4ft in diameter and 9ft high. The current enters them at a pressure of 2300 volts and leave-s them at a pressure of 25,300 volts. The pressure of this secondary current is 11 times as great as that of the current entering the transformers, but the quantity of current or number of amperes is only one-eleventh as great, and it can therefore be carried over the long lines on a much smaller wire than could a larger amount of current at a low pressure. This is the object of all transformer systems. The transformers are of two kinds. The step-up transforrae. is one in which a large current of electricity of comparatively small difference of potential is converted into a small current of comparatively great difference of potential. The step-down transformer is one in which a small current of comparatively great difference of potential is converted into a large current of comparatively small difference of potential. The long - diptance transmission of electricity through the conservation of power in mountain streams has cheapened greatly the cost of electrical energy to the consumer. The field in this direction will doubtless be extended considerably with the storage of water in the mountain diptricts, primarily for irrigation purposes, under national or State auspices. — Electricity.

— In the old chemical philosophy the filom (that which cannot be cut) Mas the smallest attainable portion of matter. Some recent experimenters believe that there are phenomena that can be explained only on the assumption that the so-called "atom" may be split up into still smaller bodies. This hypothesis is advanced by Professor J. J. Thomson, a paper read before the British Association. "Experiments indicated," says the Pharmaceutical Era, in an abstract of this paper, ''that the charge carried by an atom in cathode discharges and similar phenomena

dinary electrolysis : consequently either the a'oras become disassociated and only a portion of their mass carries the negative charges cf cathode rays, or else the atom can receive a greater charge than is assigned to it in explaining electrolytic phenomena." After desrvibinpr an ingenious experiment devised to di criniina'e between these two possibilities, Profet&or Thomson concludes that the former agree? best with the fact?. "It would appear." lie says, "that electrification seems to consist in the removal from an atom of a small corpuscle, the latter consisting of a very small portion oi the mass with a negative charge, while the remainder of the atom possesses a positive charge."