SCIENCE NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2661, 15 March 1905, Page 72

SCIENCE NOTES.

— M. Bigourdaa has been making experiments in Paris on a system of waveoperated clocks, and proves that such a system can be practically operated, and would "bo of eoiiiderable value in a large city. Paris has already a system in which 15 electrio clocks in different parts of the «-ity aTe connected with tho Observatory. But the system is costly on account of laying the wires, and its use is limited. The wav-3 u-ethod is cheaper and more practical. A main, clock which operates an electric contact each second, works a relay which sends current into the primary of an induction ooil provided with an oscillrtor. The secondary thus gives an oscillatory disclarge for a very short time, which is , regular for each second. By using a mast, "the signals can be sent to the receiving "docks. Two kinds of receivers aro used. ?The simplest is a radio-telephone of the topoff-Ducretet pattern, in which a beat 4s heard each second. The second is the receiver of an ordinary wireless telegraph receiver. Better signals are formed by J using a chronograph band. With this ap- | paratus, which unrolls one centimetre of ; band- per second, the time can b© readi within 0.02 seconds. The experiments were made at 1.2 miles distance, and this could Easily be increased. To number the seconds | the emissions would occur at the zero , second of each minute, and an interruption ' could be made at intervals of 10 seconds, i Such a system would be a great conveni- ' ence for scientific and industrial establish- . ments, watchmakers, and other places where correct— time is needed. — Ships will soon have ears — ears that will hear the approach of a torpedo boat that the captain cannot see, or that will hear the sound of a fog-bell or the waves beating against a dangerous rock on a stormy night. These electrical ears, as they ar© described by the American Telephone Journal, are more sensitive than human ears, because the sounds which they will hear are sounds which travel under water, a medium which transmits sound better than air. It is this superiority ol the water as a sound-transmitter that has brought about the new invention. It is called a "subaqueous telephone." Its principal elements are delicate .ransmitters or microphones, attached to the hull of the vessel ibelow the -water-line. These sensitive instruments intercept the sound-waves as they traverse the water and transmit them by *egular telephone wires to the captain, who, j •with receivers at his ears, is listening in the wheelhouse. It is expected to perform • ft most valued service in averting collisions. I •A type of the subaqueous telephone which ihas been adapted to fishing boats or small ■vessels of any kind consists of a receiving "box with a ball receiver, which is lowered into the water. It is obvious that some Bounds would be too delicate to penetrate the skin of a vessel, and might not be heard foy a receiver located on the inside, hence at is that the receiver is lowered directly dnto the water, and picks up sounds of com- | jparatively small intensity. In case of emer- ; gency, where a ship is not supplied with receivers located on its hull, by lowering one of those ball-receivers first on one side of the- vessel and then on th© other, and i ■noting the difference in intensity of the sound, it is practical to locate th© source, whether it be the signal of a fisherman in » dory, a bell-buoy, or any other signal. — An invention designed to revolutionise telgraphy, in that it practically does away I with the Morse system has been perfected ] by J. C. Barclay, assistant manager of the Western Union (U.S.) Telegraph Company, and the first contrivance which was built Ly | the company under Mr Barclay's patents i is now in operation. Briefly, the I invention consists of an appliance attached to an ordinary typewriter, I by which the person sending in ' one city has his message printed by a similar typewriter in another city. Unlike »ny other telegraph printing inventions, the typewriter does not click off the Morse alphabet-, but the sender writes his message before him just as an operator of a typewriter would do, and the printed message appears in exact duplicate on the receiving machine. All that it is necessary to . flo at the receiving end is to feed paper to )he typewriting machine, or a roll of paper J pan be so arranged that it will unwind as £h« messages are received. Ths machine, like Ih'i ticker, spaces and punctuates ; but, unlike it, both capital and small letters can Ije used. Mr Barclay says that he has jsuceeeded in overcoming every defect that bad appeared in telegraph printing machines. "As far as speed is concerned,'' he said, "this new instrument can beat the , mil method of telegraphy in just the game '

proportion that a rapid typewriter operator can beat a telegrapher. The sender can send as fast as he can write, and the machine at the other end will take it just as fast as he can reel it off. Tho Morse system is entirely eliminated." The inventor refused to make jrablic any of the details of his invention, but announced 1 that ho would give a public demonstiation in a , short time. j — Some speculations by Dr Schmitt, a German biologist, of the pigmentation of the skin and th° colour of abnormal perspiration suggest the possibility that the Bthiope could by chemical means change his skin. Dr Schmitt has found in the skin a ferment of the class known as oxidases, as well as other ferments called reducing ferments, which can remove from ! nitrates a portion of their oxygen. He aho ■ found in the skin of white people a colours ing pigment which he calls "uromelanin," and which is analogous to the pigment rrelanin in the negro's skin. As everyone knows, white people when their skin is exposed to the sun's rays redden or become bronzed, a phenomenon which Dr Schmitt ascribes to the presence- of "uromelanin" pigments which are more soluble than melanin, and unlike melanin, ar© not precipitated by the acids of the perspiration. If the perspiration is abundant and alkaline, the colouring pigment, which is soluble in alkalis, is carried outside the skin. But suppose the perspiration remains constantly acid, then the oxidising ferments of which i mention has been made, being stimulated ■by the sun's rays, oxidise th© colouring I matters to the highest degree, and tlie acid of tho perspiration precipitates them in the skin. The acidity neutralises, in short, the alkaline matter which would dissolve the pigment or make it less permanent. From which, if Dr Schmitt is right, wo ought to be able to bleach the negro by giving him drugs to make nts perspiration alkaline. Even so, according to yet another biologist, he would still be always distinguishable as a negro, for between the negro and the white man there is- one ineradicable mark of race. The cartilage at , the end of the nose of th© white man is J divided or split, as anyone can test by plac- | ing a finger on the tip of that organ ; but ; in the negro nose this- split does not exist. Nor does it exist in mulattcos. — With regard to the discovery by Mr | E. Walter Maunder, of the Royal Observa1 tory, Greenwich, of a relation between sun i spots and magnetic storms on the earth, k and the probability that " stream lines " iof force or electrically charged particles are thrown up from the disturbed regions of the sun, Mr W. G. Hooper, Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, suggests the pcsiibility that the sun may not be an incandescent body 4 at all, and that it may even be inhabited. Mr Hooper writes : — "The electrically charged particles must com© from the interior of the sun, or from th© universal etW in which that body floats, and in which it revolves. Space does not permit me to give the various arguments for and against these propositions, but I will simply quote a statement made by one of the most advanced scientists of America to prove that the electrified particles do not come from the interior of the sun. Professor Young has declared that the sun is not only an electrified body, . but may possibly be the abode of living beings. He suggests that the sun is the centre of electric force, and that converging streams of electricity are ever flowing to it, as a centre, which, on meeting with , the atmosphere, give rise to brilliant discharges, thus giving the appearance of a solid incandescent body. I need hardly I point out that if the sun is in any sense a solid body, the electrically charged particles cannot come from that source. Now, whether we accept this or not, it cannot be disproved that all space is flooded with electricity. Clark Maxwell's theory of light and the Hertz extieriinents described in Electric Waves conclusively nrove this. But electricity has been proved" to be made up of infinitesimal particles, called electrons, . and these again have an ethereal origin, ; according to Dr Larmor's theory in 'Ether . and Matter.' "What, then, is this ether which fills space? I s it matter? Is it a substance? Is it also made up of particles? because, if it is, then we have in the ether the very electric particles which can be projected' out into space bjr the projectile force of an eruptive sun spot, no matter whecher that sun spot is an active volcano or a huge hoi© in the sun's surface Now, Professor Osborne Reynolds, in his ' Inversion of Ideas as to the Structure of tho Universe,' has worked out a theory of the ether, and gives to it a • granular ' structure ; while Professor Mendeleeff, of 1 St. Petersburg University, has definitely j asserted ihat ether is a form of matter, or a kind of gas, that is made up of atoms', I and actually calculated the weight of an letter atom in h's 'Chemical Conception cf the Ether.' If, therefore, ether is matter, and is made up of atoms, according to Pro. MendeleefF, or of electrons, according to Dr Lariror, what i^s more lilc-ely to happen whenever there is an eruption from a sun spot than that tbsse electrons in th© one case should be propelled forth into space by the projectile force generated by the sua spot. So that I think Mr Maunder has all the most advanced scientifio hypotheses in regard to the composition of the universal ether supporting his theory of the projection of electrically charged particles into space, and also that these electrical particles find their hem© in the universal ether of space, and not in the sun." — An interesting illustrated treatise by Mr W. A. Kerr, V.C., on "Peat and Its Products as a National Sotirce of Wealth," is to be published by Messrs Begg, Kennedy, and Elder, Glasgow. Special reference is

made in the preface, and indeed in many paits of the book, to the peat bogs of Ireland. The author directs attention to tha various Uves and products of the source of wealth lying at our doors. "Pear," Mr Kfi-r points out, "covers about 2,831,000 acres, one-seventh of Ireland's surface, calculated to contain 33,972,0C0,0C0 tons of fuel valued at £250,000,000, an enormous national treasure only requiring working, with an extended means of transit, to prove a gold mine of fabulous capacity. Lieut. - Ger.eral Sir H. H. Sankey, late chairmau of Public Works, Ireland, in an article in tho Nineteenth Century, entitled 'A Future for Irish Bogs,' says: "We could count on having a heating power in the hogs for steam-raising to give us a constant output of 300,000 horse-power for 4-12 conseoutivo years.' " This writer advocates the utilisation of this vast amount of carbon which Nature has stored up in the Irish turbai ies for the generation, in situ, of electric energy, which, through the application of modern scientific principles, can be transmitted and made available at an extremely low price in all parts of the country. To her bounteous but now seriously exhausted coal measures, Great Britain owes much of her wealth and position, and though Ireland can boast of no such mineral wealth she, in her vast acres of excellent peat, possesses a fuel supply which it has been calculated will, if worked on a sound business basis, meet all her wants as to power, illuminatkm, and heating for over a century. In France, Germany, and Austria a vast anount of briquette fuel compounded of peat with 'breeze,' either from soft or br<.wn coal, is manufactured. These briquettes burn more freely than coal, yield intense heat, and coke perfectly. This fuel is particularly well adapted for steam service where great pressure is aimed at, for the smelting of ores, and the manufacture of gas both for power and lighting. In this direction we shall find a use for the vast heaps of coal dust lying on th© banks of our collieries. By this means also wiil be found a market for the accumulations of anthracite dust. It is estimated that there ar© 152,000,000 tons of anthracite waiting to be worked in Ireland." Mr Kerr gives some interesting particulars of the manufacture of peat fuel in Stchleswig-Hol-etein. The bogs of this damp, bleak portion of North Germany bear a striking resemblance to those of Ireland. It appears that 1000 briquettes of peat can be> bought in the town of Schleswig for 3s 2d, and that peat is underselling coal in maiiy towns of the province. Among much other valuable information in Mr Kerr's book is that concerning a new fuel introduced by tho jßandail Synthetic Coal Company, of Boston, Mass.. U.S.A. It is a mixture of peat and petroleum.