SCIENCE NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2660, 8 March 1905, Page 76

SCIENCE NOTES.

— Are the countless .stars and planets which stud the evening sky habitable worlds? So v iar, litt.e information has i>een obtained with regard to an> of these unknown planets, with lha exception rf Marc, which is the nearest of them to the "earth. But, according to "T.A.T.," in spite of all our scientific drawbacks, many .people will be surprised to learn how ex- _ Uyisive our 'present knowledge of this planet is. According tar M. Camillc Flammarion,,, tlie faihous French astronomer, 'Hbe- districts surrounding the poles of Mars are fcetter known geographically and meteorologically than those of our own; for, being almost' always able to measure the extent of the polar snows, it is seen to vary with the seasons." The Mars yeai is nearly double that of our 3: it contains 688 days, and a bisextile one. or leap year, of 689 days. The inhabitants — if such there be — must te of more ancient origin than we are, a:id therefore, presumably at least, more advanced in "the lint of progress. The fog-ridden Londoner will learn with envy +}iat to the Martians the- sky appears always pure and ee-rene. They are also blessed with two moons. According to M. Flammarion, the atmosphere of the planet has properties which accord with our own ; its aqueous vapoir contains ovygen and nitrogen — the constituents of rain-water. "Tha Tclea of 'habitation," as he- aptly remark", "is undoubtedly connected with the idea of habitability." Mars is habitable, and therefore why not peopled with beings like ourselves or greatly superior to us? To svch a favoured race we should he regarded as lower animals. Our laboured efforts to make life supportable with our "triumphs of science," such as telegraphs, steamships, motor cars, railroads, arid the like, would only pr-gsent to them a curious study, like tha habits of the ant and the bee are to

—In a contribution t< the discussion which is proceeding in The, Times on waterfinding. Sir W. Preeee points out that there Is an ' external physical action in connection with running ■water which is quite sufficient to account for the majority of recorded facts 2 elating to the "divining rod." He has ccme to the conclusion that it is mechanical vibration eet. up by the friet'on of moving water which, acting upon tbc sensitive •ventral diaphragm of certain exceptionally ilelicately-framed persons, accounts fcr ihe involuntary muscular action, due, p>o■bably, u> a form of nausta, of which he says sea-sieknj s is doubtless an exaggerated form.

• —So much lias been written about the ravages of the cotton boll weevil in the cotton fields of the United States that the mefsures taken for keeping this pest within limits are* of almost universal interest. The (meazis on which a great deal of reliance I was placed, and which in any case promised to furnish a very Instructive experiment, was that of introducing from Guatemala an ant kno«rn as the k«l©p. which is a deadly enemy of the boll weevil, and which does no hai-m to the cotton plant itself. (But on these hopes a great deal of onld wat*»»* has beei scientifically dashed by Dr W. M. Whee'.-ar, of the American Museum of Natural History. He points out that in the first place it is very doiibtful whether ilse kelep, which thrives best on a varied diet, will, after disposing of ihe boll weevil; ilmit himself to this form of food. Moreover, there are grave doubts whether the jkelep would ever survive transplantation to a region the climate of which pro.vidffs severe winters and occasional floods. 'At Srst blush ants seem to be the easiest of *11 insects to introduce, since the fer'tilsied ixiaen is long lived and capable as *q> individual of producing a whole selfsupporting colony of ants. But when we some to enumerate the species that hnv«» been able to survive in forpigrn land= there «lc *iot_aj)pear to be. more iLsui half a

dozen ■fully-ascertained and accredited cases. The chief reason for this rarity on their part as imnrlgraTit aliens is probably their extreme susceptibility to physical conditions. But even if Texas should provide suitable physical conditions, the kelep will have to reckon with the existing ant citizens of that favoured clime. Ants do not t welcome the alien, and the Texan ant is a stahvart and something more than a I passive resisted It is probable, indee 1, [ that the living environment of Texas will effectually prevent the colonisation of Texas by the 'kelep, which is not a dominant ant t'yn its own country.

— A discovery of the greatest importance has very recently been mad© in the domain of ocular scienco (says the Scientific American of New York). Dr Walter Thorner, Boyal Charity Hospital, has siicoeeded in photographing the back of the eye, and in obtaining good reproductions of the photographs. His invention is a grtat improvement upon the Helmholtz eye speculum. ■which permitted only of examining the back of the eye, while now an image of it can be fixed. The failure of all attempts made up to the present to photograph the interior and the back of the eye has been due to the peculiar structure of this organ. It is difficult, in fact, to illuminate the eye sufficiently to obtain a photograph of '"c : and even upon employing powerful sources of light the exposure of the organ would take too long, and would occasion unendurable pain to the patient. Dr Thorner. in the first place, constructed an apparatus by means of which he succeeded 1 in photographing the eyes o^ certain animals, and principally those ol oats. As the back of the eye is darker in man than in the cat, it became necessary to introduce certain improvements in the apparatus before it was possible to photograph the back of the eye of man. Owing to such improvements, the inventor has finally obtained complete success. It is now possible gradually to follow the progress of an eye disease through its successive periods, and likewise to photograph each of the parts, of the interior of the eye separately. Dr Thorner's researches will doubtless lead to interesting discoveries in the domain of ocular science.

— With reference to the suggestion advanced by the Hon. C. A. Parsons at the recent British Association meeting, that deep borings should be made into the earth's crust for the purpose of investigation of the earth's interior, and that a shaft such as this might be sunk tc a depth of 12 miles, another scientist has pointed out that the pressure of the rock at such a depth represents soms 40 tons per square ii eh, and would render the task impossible owing to the inward viscous flow of the lock material. In reply the Hon. C. ' A. Parsons suggests an experiment to solve the problem. He points out that the crushing stress required to make hardened steel flow lies between 120 and 300 tons to the square inch, while for tough brass or cartridge metal the flow is at about 80 tons per eqtiare inch pressure. His experiment would be to take a column of granite o* quartz rook and carefully fit it into a steel mould. A small hole would then be bored through its centre, and a pressure of 100 tons per square inch then applied, to observe what shrinkage would lesult. Surti a pressure as this would correspond to that encountered at a depth of 38 miles.

— The wonderful new "high-speed" steel, which is so called because it-will cut other steel faster than ever was done- before without getting hot or breaking, has been turned to a new use. The general impression has been (says the American Machinist) that no high-speed steel will take a fine edge. To prove that this impression is not correct, so far at least as one high-speed steel is concerned, the Sir W. G. Arm-strong-Whitworth Company has had some razors made of its high-speed steel, which, it is «aid, tvill be invaluable to young men who shave in a hurry. Another Manchester lmention of still more general utility is &

miniature gas meter of a new type- It consists of a srtinll turbine or windmill, enclosed in. a cylinder, which i<; attached to the gas supply pipe on each cooking range or heating stove. In order to reach the stove the gas must pass through this cylinder, and in doing so it sends the turbine spinning round, and thus works the meter. Th-e more gas the stove burns the quicker it flows through the pipe and cylinder, the faster the turbine spins, and the higher the meter registers. The advantage of" this handy little contrivance is that it enables you to register the amount of gas used for cooking and heating apart from that used for lighting. — Manchester Guardian.

—In an instructive article in Harper's Maeazine, Sir William Ramsay gives some of l:he results whicl- have been obtained in the chemical examination of the products of change of radium. Summing up his remarks, he says:— The work is merely begun, but it leads to a hypothesis as regards the constitution of radium aud similar elements which was first put forward by Rutherford and Soddy. It is that atoms of elements of high atomic -weight, such as radium, uranium, thorium, and the suspected elements polonium and actinium, are unstable ; that they undergo spontaneous change into other forms of matter, themselves radioactive, and themselves unstable ; and that finally, elements are produced which, on account of their non-radioactivity, are, as a rule, impossible to recognise, for their minuts amount precludes the application of any ordinary test with success. Ihe recognition of helium, however, which is comparatively easy of detection, lends great support to this hypothesis. A question which arises is: seeing that an element like radium is changing into other substances, and that its life is a comparatively short one, it must be in course of formation, else its amount would be- exhausted in about 2500 years. An attempt has been made by Soddy to see '4 uranium salts, carefully purified from radium, have reproduced radmm after en interval of a year: but his result was a negative one. Possibly some other form of matter besides uranium contributes to the synthesis of radium, and further experiments in this direction^will be eagerly welcomed. Lastly, the experiments of Ramsay and Cook on the action of the B-rays appear to foreshadow results o* importance. For while radium, during its spontaneous change, parts with a relatively enormous amount of energy, largely in the form of heat, it is a legitimate inference that if the atoms of ordinary elements could be made to absorb energy they would undergo change of a constructive, and not of a disruptive, nature. If, as looks probable, the action of B-rays, themselves the conveyers of enormous energy, on such matter as glass is to build up atoms- which are radioactive, and conseouentiy of high atomic weight; and if it be" found that the particular matter produced depends on the element 6n which the .B'-rays fall, and to which they impart their energy — if these hypotheses are just, then the "transmutation of elements nolonger appears an idle dream. The philosopher's stone will have been discovered, and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that it may lead to that other goal of the philosophers of the dark ages—theelixir vitse. For the- action of living cells is also dependent on the nature and direction of the energy which they contain; and who can say that it will be impossible to control their action, when the means of imparting and controlling energy shall have been investigated?