SCIENCE NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 76

SCIENCE NOTES.

— Patents have been granted, according to a Washington correspondent, for a machine to be used in the manufacture of glass telegraph poles. The poles are said to be especially valuable in the countries where 'wooden poles are quickly' destroyed By insects or ~bv climate. • — American chemists, working under the auspices of the', eovoyrrment, ' have discovered' a' methoa of "making ' jwper from ccrnstaSks at 'half the .usual," cost of the wood pulp prcduce. " "". X ' . — Mrs TBeVtha Arytort ' has succeeded in •ascertaining pie cause: of • the re/rac^ryj be-^ 'WVfchir--of'\the t g&yrcbjight, ,' J in certain respecfes*,' and' in' cfevising a remedy. The British Admiralty tfalled on Professor Ayrton to'investigate the trouble some tiwie ago. 'Af,teT making many investigations he ttarnett-the problem over to /his" wife, who: is" the ,'onlx woman member 'of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, and who "received the only medal ever awarded to a woman by' ' the Royal Society of London for original unaided wort. — Aachen and the .othei German towns of Schwabach, Iserlohn, Ichtershaiisen, and Atlona provide three-quarters of the world -with pins and needles ; Great Britain furnishes the rest — all told, a late computation has proved that 150 million pins and needles are used, broken, or lest every day in the year, Sundays included. The -representative of the biggest needle 'and pin manufactory in the world was asked to explain what became of these pins and needles that daily vanish from the face of the earth. Ho shook his head, saying that he could think of no adequate explanation. "They go," he said, "and we have to make up for loss — that's all there is in it."' — Under the title of the "Devil's Touchstone" specimens of certain remarkable alloys of iron with the metals of some of the rarer earths can now be obtained 1 in England. On being scratched with a knife or file they emit showers of bright sparks. With large pieces and strong pressure sparks as large as a man's hand, and of intense brilliance, are thrown off. The principle is doubtless the same ac that by which a spark is produced from steel and flint. The inventor of these alloys, Aver yon Welsbaoh, has named them "pyrophorus" — that is, fire-bearing alloys. Tiie sparks from the new touchstone ignite readily. They will kindle tinder, _fire inflammable gases, light wicks saturated with, alcohol, and fire explosives. Various practical uses are suggested. By means of a steel moved by an electro-magnet they may be used to light incandescent lamps. Explosives uay be Safely fired, military signalling can be carried on, and owing to the absence of smoke the new alloys should prove useful in flashlight photography.

— During the opposition of Saturn last year two sensational announcements concerning its rings were made public. One, which came from America, told us that two of the three rings were disappearing, and that it was only a matter of time for them to have become things of the past. The other discovery, made at the observatory <Jn the Puy de Dome, France, was that, instead of losing its rings, the planet was developing another "faint, transparent, and luminous ring outside the exterior ring." Confirmation of the existence of the new ring has just been announced from the Geneva Observatory, where, on October 8, "a new dusky ring surrounding the "bright rings" was clearly seen. •

— Devastating and dissolving war ca» be waged on germs as the consequence of a remarkable discovery by two German scientists, who have found that a substance called au'tiformin possesses wonderful properties. For som& time past antiformin has been used as a 'disinfectant, and especially in breweries, for the purpose of cleansing rapidly and thoroughly vats and pipes. The experiments of the two professors establish the fact that it destroys most effectively and rapidly the bacteria of dysentery, cholera, typhoid fever, and bubonic plague. When a comparatively small amount of the powerful reagent is added to -water containing the germs in question they gradually disappear enter, in fact, into solution, very much ac « lump of sugar would under similar conditions. .Strange to say, the bacteria of tuberculosis show a remarkable power *f resistance against the action of antiformin-^-so much «3 that it will be of little aid in connection with the crusade now being waged against that disease. — Herr Zschorner, of Vienna, has been experimenting with peat for 15 years, and has shown conclusively that it has many astonishing qualities A building Jias been exhibited (says a New York paper) In which everything, from the carpets on the floor to the curtains in the windows and the paper on tlie wall*- was made from peat. The fibres of the remains of the rcod> and grasses of which peat is composed have, of course, their original physical and chemical chaiacters changed; but the fibrous structure remains unharmed, and the fibre?* themselve-s are very durable, clastic, and non-conductor* of heat. Fabrics woven from thorn are found to ha\e the toughness of > linen, with the warmth of wool. There is no textile fabric that cannot be woven from these fabrics. Blankets and other coverings used for hordes and cattle ha\e been found to excel m warmth and cleanliness. Paper of se\cral qualities his been made, and the uses to which peat fibie has already been applied indicate possibilities that may render the peat bogs of Ireland a, valuable addition to the r.« isourcet- of that tountrv.

— In the observatory of Columbia University is one of the most accurate clocks in the world. It has run for sevcial months with a mean error of only fifteen-thousandthe of a second ai.J a maximum error of thirtythou6andeths of a (second per day. That means that it does not vary more than half a fieoond a month, or six seconds a year. Compare this with the first pocket timepiece, the "Animated Egg of Nuremberg,'" ■which required winding twice a day and varied an hoirr, and a-half in the same* time ! Compare it with some of the highe«t-prircd watches manufactured to-day, which often vary more than 10 seconds a week, and you will have some idea of the refinements in the science of measuring time. Yet oven this accuracy is surpassed by some famous timepieces, if the trade magazines are to be believed. Theie have been accounts in them of clock* or watches that ha.\c \ariod !e~« tiian a 6econ<l in period* ac long <i-, 10 years. The clock in i lie I'm versify of Columbia is an aMionomical clock. It is sunounded by a gla*^ eu.^c in which a partial \acuum i«« maintained, and in order that the case may not be opoiud or disturbed the winding i«. done auto matically by electricity. The clock io sec

up in a room especially constructed to keep it free from jar or vibration. The temperature and barometric conditions are maintained' pracTicaily constant, and every pos- j sible precaution is taken to minimise the [ errors of the running rate. j — The idea of a cold flame and a heat- [ less light has many natural phemoraena and , ; much science to support if. ; TJial ,sucH aj : .house-lighting utensil will, be made, (and as |jj j common as* £he electric Jjght';to,-<iay.,,.is> now;j a 'scientific problem as easy, of soTutiori ass j was the electric - 'Ijght ,, problem a". "quarter £ lof a eenttrry ago. Such an' «p"re|ssion as? ■ "cold flanie" seems' so contradictory 'to the ordinary-i nterpretation of •Things' "fhit its** very suggestion brands the s'\igge^erl ass; beiag under ay halfr»cifttfrton"r but since * , -sKatnrai' actually^ r presents : the- world wi-tjh a>, , eqld ftame -and a heatless light, man deed j. j ncit -be ashamed to speak oi them, thought . the unlearned may point at their craniums ' jn derision of, ri the- {Suggestion.- The* cold same is»seen in the firefly, and the heatlcss ' lignt is found in the glow-worm. These /flames and lights are not mysteries. Their cause, it has now been discovered, is due , to ether, one. of the most subtle forces in |. Natre. The human senses are acquainted ' with this substance only in. an indirect way, and that way is seen in its workings. Yet ether flows through the earth's atmosphere in mighty currents — unchecked, resistless, and subtle. Neither wood nor stone, water nor metal, flesh nor soil, is a bairriex to ! its progress, but each allows the passage oi an electric current. This same ether ( is the direct parent- of the X-ray and the < speech of tihe wireless telegraph. The light . in the electric-light bulb is only giving , forth a rude ether blush ; but vhen man ' shall attain the perfect vacuum this same bulb will give forth many times more light, purified and heatless, soft and healing as the light of the stars, penetrating as the j sun. This behaviouT of ether is present in j the flash of the firefly and in the light of i the glow-worm. These two insects are | Nature's perfect vacuum makers. — Popular ' Science Sittings. i — The problem of the first appearance of life on the earth and the other worlds of the solar system is one which has always ' possessed its attractions to the ripest thinkers. Arrhenius, the famous Swedish physicist, has once more applied himself to the problem, the solutions to which may be broadly divided into three classes. First, there is the view which is handed down to us in the Book of Genesis. Mcst physicists are inclined to think seriously of the second i hypothesis, embraced in what is called the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Arr- , henius takes the third view — that life is brought by some external agency to the surface of the earth in the form of living ' cells. The fundamental ideas upon which he builds the superstructure of his theory ' are the influence of light jpon the cosmic j corpuscles and the hypothesis that worlds are periodically born and come to an end. i Light has the power of catching up the , living cellr. and of sowing them broadcast ' upon, the worlds in space. It is impossible [ to deny the possibility of his conjecture i that the pressure of light may under certain j circumstances become superior to the force | of attraction, and we may assume the j corpuscles to be infinitely small. So we may picture to ourselves universal space as j filled with cells travelling on luminous ! waves and being deposited on whatever celestial bodies they may encounter on, [ their strange journey. Then when the ' conditions peculiar to any particular world are sufficiently favourable, the living cell begins a "terrestrial" . development. Of course, thn objection at once occurs that the journeys of the >ells may be interminable, that they may travel for thousands of years before they find a domicile. But this does .not disturb the serenity of Arrhenius. The temperature of space, he retorts, is low ; chemical processes are not set up; the germinating forces inherent in the cells do not lose their power as quickly as at terrestrial temperatures. As the teihperature is raised through lOdeg the vitaJ funct'oms increase in the proportion j of two to five. Hence he contends we ' may fairly suppose that if the living spores , are transported in space at a temperature j of 225deg C. below zero, the development of the life therein contained will be of the most gradual character. Their germinative faculty would be no more impaired in three million years at the /emperature of space than if they were for 24- hours ; exposed to a temperature of lOdeg C. j