SCIENCE NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2651, 4 January 1905, Page 68

SCIENCE NOTES.

— Those who -have followed the accounts ' •f the appalling, .engagements proceeding in the F^r East cannot" fail to have^ noticed . that oftentimes severe fighting appears to., brwg in its train atmospheric storms. It was so in several, sharp encounters— in the ' feoer War; the occurrence of heavy thunder storms was quite;- common whenever the ' .firing" of heavy guns was incessant/,' Needless to say," the phenomenon "has been^ewed by- some with superstitious f. 'Miigs as repre- > tenting a remonstrance of the v Deity against jthe hoiTjors and the cruelty of war. Thun- ! cfofstqrms are, of course, 'recorded in his-i-jfcory as-- having^ -been a concomitant of bloody " struggles," but there, is evidence- to -show jthat . their existence is more marked and frequent under the- •e.ondijions of modern warfare than* has hitherto ' been the case. ((Te "lenow 'thalfe -great' disturbances' '. lit the ' lower' regions' of -the 'atmosphere are apt to • induce a * coalition "" ' of vapour 'particles- in^ i. — the upper "witbT the -result 'that ' they .are precipitated/ia the form' of <raih.'" Jin" agriculture^ indeed>"some attempts-have ; . peen-^inade "to tap"the-douds by .creating. J W shock in -the. air as >by letting-off maroons. Z „ is' commonly-: said -±hat- at .the JOrystal ' Palace on' an evening "when rain' threatens, to , descend, it oiily. requires the discharge of fireworks to convert the threat' Into a reality. ' Even* a military (brass) rand has been held . responsible for a Vhower. If this is so we mfght reasonably Expect modern warfare, with its armamentarium of ghastly explosives, to accentuate the process. ' Sharp afld rapid vibration of the jrir. probably favours a difference of potential until a point of stress is readied culminating in the^. gathering of great clouds ■» and the bursting, of a storm. Thus the ' fury of the elements .may be engendered ) by the fury of - 1 men. — The Lancet. } Brainwopkers will be interested in -the ; Rr cider" on fatigue which an eminent physi- > . bian, Sir W. R. Gowers,! contributes to the .Quarterly Review. Th»- author says it is ; turious that a fact of life so keenly and i generally felt— -as is fatigue should have ireoeived systematic study only in recent { years, and he confesses that even the latest \resejerch can teach- us little of -the nature i'of weariness: ' Most' men (as the Sketch . jremarks) nowadays -work under a greater ifctrain than they did 20 years ago. There Is more labour and there, is more worry. 'As to the remedy, Sir W. R. Gowers had kittle to say., and .that- he says very cau'{fciously and dubiously. Fe seems -to hold jfchat rest is more impoi^ at than recreation. Though he believes in the advantage of exercise in ". the » open- air, he '.stipulates that, to.De useful, exertion must benion&rate. JRecreation "as valuable^ iifpropor- , jfcion as it involves' a thorough change- in ihe character of nerve activity* "'But "it should ilways be remembered that no recreation jis possible; if *hat which _ia thus designated"eimply replaces' one form, of fatigue A by ! another form.'' Sjlaify. a -holiday is rendered- j •useless by 'such disregard' -to the dictates of Jthat rare practical wisdom to which, as" if an irony, we apply the designation common .Bense." Sir W. R. .Gowers holds that fatigue is prevented by change of work only fif the work is not' too heavy. A different form of mental work may involve the gentle activity that is Bonducive' to better of old constituents by new, and anay thus - promote the general wellbeing of the brain. " — The convenient internal-combustion enjgine used for motor.; oars and bicycles has ] jbeen applied as a maitter 'of course to boatSng, purposes, ~ and . the trials of the craft .which ..have recently been made show that p, high speed can be attained by means of aneehanism of very., light weight, occupying little 6paoe. As a rule a motor boat' will jbe synonymous with a pleasure boat; but 5t is belieVedl ' by somo that "vessels of this eeSoription will play an ir :ortant part in jraxiaxe: Mr F? S. Edge) --who offered two ibf "his motor boats to the "Admiralty for jfcrial during the autumn naval manoeuvres! 'anticipates that owing to the small size "and "bigh- speed of a motor boat it would) tbe next to impossible to hit it with a big /jfeun, because between the moment of firing 'and- the arrival of the projectile there would •b& time to alter its course or to stop it. jThe boat is so light that its' momentum •ia small,- and it lies so low in the water ""that it' makes A very small target for any j £un, big or little. It will be extremely iiseful $fy scouting purposes ; and. by means pf a ttatfing torpedo, muto damage might £© effected, especially to. any submarine Vessel which might come into contact with She trailer. -/ —Possibly the greatest find of remains Sf extinct animals ever mad© was Jhat ,by Mr Walter Granger, of the American Itfuseum expedition, in Central Wyoming, md these have been dug out, arranged, end legcxibed In the Centura?: iox Seotembei i

Mr H. F. Osborn describes the "Noah's Ark deposit" of the" bones of giant dinosaurs, mingled with the remains of the smaller but powerful carnivorous dinosaurs who preyed upon them, also those of the slow and heavily * armoured dinosaurs. These have , been examined since .1898 onwards. Some finely-rounded, complete limbs 'of the carnivorous dinosaur, from" Bft to 10ft long, were found Of the dinosaur Diplodocus^a specimen' about 7 70ft in length is now in -the Carnegie Museum. Pittsburgh The head, only about - 2ft "longy is out of all proportion to the body ; the .neck, 'is* 21ft 4in ; the back; 10ft* lOin; vertebras of hip, 2ft 3in; and the tail"is about 40fOong. The, Barosaurus- discovered •by- r l>r^3. -R. Wieland in the Blacik -Hifls<of South Dakota js still larger; the -length of its neck was enormous, and the whole exceeded the Diplodoous in size. • Altogether some parts of animals" were' discovered in Wyoming, including remains of air % least iOO * giant dinosaurs. " .— A process_ of colour photography by the method of Lippmann — that is,« by ' interference of the "waves of light, as in the colours of a soap bubble, but without the us© of a mirror of mercury, has been brought before the^ Academy of Sciences, Paris, -by M. E. Kbthe.'' Tracing irregularities in the colouration of ..the Lippmann photographs obtained by the use of the mercury mirror to reflection from air between the-, gelatine ,and ; mercury," he has obtained colour photographs "by reflection from the air. alone in dispensing -with " the mercury. r Photographs of--- spectra, birds, ,and bouquets, shown to the Academy, were got by interfer.ence of the waves of light by reflection*' "from the surface 'of separation between -the gelatine and air-. It iSuffioe&'to place in any apparatus'- whatever, he says, with its— glass front towards the object, a transparent 'gelatine-bromide plate prepared after the" indications of Lippmann. Thej pose for the "new" photo graphs is very 'variable, according 'as -the object)' is 'in •light, or shade_ (3o minutes irt the-vsun, two hoars- in ,the- laboratory). Pyrogallic acid, according to. the" formula 1 x>| MM. Lumiere,appeaife^the best' "developer^-. To '-bring *out sombre' tints, it "is well, to reinforce- with,: bichloride and,' amidol', but. this/ •requires; care, not .to spoil -%he -.coloiirs. 1 ' .. The tints" are- not,- so' bright .as' with .the' -mercury mlrirorj-'but the .method, while*, simpler, and ■requiring no special camera, may be improved." It is already fit tto show variations of colour with ' temperature, humidity, etc., Amateurs may now take interference colour photographs. — London Globe. — Halley's comet, which makes its appearance in 1910, has been called the most remarkable comet .of -inodern ; times. From "the - autumn of 1680 to . the next spring appeared a magnificent opmet, interesting to us for one striking reason — it was that utilised by Newton to prove that comets move- under the influence of the gravitation of the sun. Halley gave as its period 575. years, and it was conjectured that its first recorded appearance was in the September after the murder of Julius Caesar, a coincidence which was of great comfort to the Zadkiels, etc., of those days, who held that .comets pprtended the death of ci king, a, s " plague, .or some other horror. 1 No doubt if the. Duke of Conuaught ha& not been miraculously preserved the other day his aocident would! in some way have been -connected with the apparition of Enoke's comet, which, is now in telescopic view. But to return. Two years after this great cornet of 1680, .the famous Hal■ley's comet made' its appearance — August 19, „ 1682— and for the space "of a month it was watched with anxious or with interested I gaze, as the case might be. ' To the re- [ lief some and vto the-, disappointment of ; others it disappeared. But' it had remained j among .us long" enough to enable its orbit ! to be calculated 1 , - and; Halley decided that it" was the very identical ? comet discovered by, Kepler 75 years before.. If this ,was its period; there, should Eave been" a comet in v 1531. with apparently the same orbit. And t ' this "proved, to be the case. Going back yet "another 75, years brought the comet to ,the days when prayers were offered by order of the Pope for' the protection of Christendom against — the comet and 1 the Unspeakable Turk! Mr Gore tells the i story of how the return of the comet was i predicted by astronomers for 1835, and with [remarkable accuracy. The "various dates I assigned were November 11, 15, 26. The j event occurred on November 16. — Westminster Gazette. , —To show the cosmic origin of aerolites, i Berthelot, who has an interesting paper on The .subject in a recent number of the Revue Scientifique, . marshalled, the results acquired by the observation of shooting stars. No fall of aerolites has- as yet been found to synchronise with swarms of shooting stars. Some aerolites contain no iron at all. Some -contain substances which could not possibly have resisted high temperatures. Their origin must therefore be quite different from that of the others. The common family relationship of some is betrayed by the presence of iron and' nickel. None are of the same composition as our stratified rocks, none show any trace of fossils, although traces of compounds of hydro-carbonates are to be found in excep- • tional oases. No mineral is found! in them the formation of which implies the original reactions of water. However, we cannot find in them any element or compound which is not to be found on the surface of i the - globe. - Berthelot (according to the I Westminster Gazette) examined' the composition of the 15 great masses found at Ovifak ill Greenland by Nordenskiold ; they proved to be in composition end structure similar to meteoric iron^- Their origin could hardly be extraterrestrial, tor he tells us that they are associated with eruptive rocks of the basalt class. Many of these masses, indeed, are found "accompanied by basaltic rooks, in which either by the aid of the I tnicroscQ-fie or °f c magnet fine particles

of iron are detected. Berthelot concludes j that these ferruginous masses and the ac- • companying basalts are specimens of the j internal strata of the globe. Masses of native iron have also been found far from | basalts and lying on granite. The specimens of native iron also contain carbon: Hence Borthelot is led to see in the constituent masses of the terrestrial nucleus the origin of the carbon which gives us carbonic acid and contributes to the constitution of living beings. — The synthetical processes worked out by the chemist are wholly unlike those occurring in plant and animal issues. The chemist (according to Professor M'Kendrick) attains his end by violent means and with considerable rapidity ; whereas in the silent laboratory of the plant and animal cell molecular processes are slowly carried on of which we 'know at present next to nothing. The green colouring matter in a leaf is every day turning carbonic acid of the air into, it is pointed out, fixed carbon, and the plant cells are transforming the carbon into sugar or starch. How this is done the chemist knows not, and he can make no enzymes or ferments to imitate the simple plant. The synthetic organic ' chemists have achieved wonders, but between their work aaid that of Nature a gree.fr gulf i 3 fixed.