SOMETHING ATTEMPTED: SOMETHING DONE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 75

SOMETHING ATTEMPTED: SOMETHING DONE.

THE CLEVER WORK OF MEN’S HANDS AND BRAINS TO-DAY. Every day seems to provide some fresh, instance of the perpetual ingenuity of the human brain and hand. Here are «t>me facts which show it. But against these must be set the dominant fact that the men who can do these things so often in the greater task of ordering their* own lives and the social life of the community. The same constant ingenuity is not applied to both tasks. —Sorting Postal-orders by Machines. — “A machine for the sorting of paid postal-orders is now being tried in the money-order department, of the General Post Office, Manor Gardens, Holloway, its object being to assist or replace the operations which have hitherto been earned out by hand,” says The Times engineering Supplement. ‘‘The lhachine is the invention of Mr F. R. Frost, a member of the staff of the department, and of Mr Justus Rubardt, and it is stated that, according to the Patent Office records, it forms the first attempt to solve the nroblem of sorting small pieces of paper mechanically. “The machine is designed to sort the postal-orders numerically into hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, thousands, and hundreds, and for this purpose the orders are provided before they are issued to the public with four nerforations, t\vo along the upper edge and two the lower one, each perforation being placed in a certain position to the figure it represents. In the sorting operation the orders, already sorted according to their money value, are impressed against the periphery of a ‘rotating drum piOvided with metallic prickers or spikes, which pick up the orders according to the position of the perforations, and place them in a chain of boxes in synchronism with the drum. “At present the experiment is being made with a million orders of 20s value. It is expected that one attendant wifi be able to control six machines.” —Music by Wireless.— “When the Hirondelle, the Prince of Monaco’s remarkable combination of yacht and scientific laboratory, recently entered New York Harbour, her arrival was made known to all the wireless stations in the vicinity by a concert, the music being heard and enjoyed by all who were at the receivers of wireless apparatus,” says the New York Herald. “The .‘wireless piano’ that was the source of this music is part of the wireless plant of the yacht, which is remarkable for its nower and ingenuity. It is a German invention, but is controlled by a French company. “ ‘lt always causes astonishment,’ says the Prince. “The voice of this sea swallow was due to a piano-like attachment to what is considered the most remarkable wireless equipment which ever has come to this port. The notes may be heard over sea and land for manv a mile. Several incoming vessels, including the Grosser Kurfurst, of the North German Lloyd Line, reported hearing siren strains as they neared the coast, and the mystery is now solved.” —Radium on Draft.— “Even in an age of wonderful discoveries that announced to-day is well calculated to astonish the least imaginative. It cannot be said that the curative properties of radium are as yet definitely established, though there is excellent ground for hope in the facts cited by Sir Frederick Treves,” says the Daily News. “But the mere details of the new discovery are so amazing that the mind staggers at them. '• “The great barrier to the adaptation of inventions to the service of man has nearly always been the absence of some cheap and effective way of disseminating them. What the Radium Institute has done is. to make it possible for any country doctor to employ the most expensive known substance in the treatment of his patients at a very moderate cost. It is only necessary to bottle the emanations of the radium—which for curative purposes are as effective as the radium itself, which are given off constantly by it, with a practically negligible loss of power—and the thing is done. Radium becomes no longer the priceless luxury of the laboratory, but a remedy of’ ordinary medical practice.” “As regards true malignant growths (cancers), the aspect is emphatically more reassuring than last rear. We aVe still getting what we will continue to call ‘apparent cures,’ ” says Sir Frederick Treves. —Radium as the Burning Bush.— “It is a haunting mature, that of the tiny treasure in the institute’s strongroom—the whole ‘stock’ weighs less than one-seventh of an ounce,—maintaining its ceaseless output of energy for the relief of human suffering,” says the Pall Mall. “Sir Frederick Treves described the minute treasure which is conserved at the institute as ‘the only reproduction of the burning bush of Moses—constantly giving off heat and never consumed.’ It seems to realise the potency of other miracles—the widow’s cruse which did not fail—and the dreams of many poets and idealists of a beneficent virtue that should flow perennially from an inexhaustible fountain. Radium is one of those things that ‘tease us out of thought, as doth eternity.’ It seems one of the gates to that hinterland of science and philosophy through which we are Only able as yet to cast a fugitive and dazzled vision.” —Dr Nansen’s Remarkable Voyage.— “The arrival at Immingham of the Siberian steamer Correct concludes a remarkable voyage, which has not only opened out a new« Siberian trade route, but resulted in much scientific research,” says the Telegraph. “The outward voyage

Occupied four years, and the expedition, organised by Mr Jonas Lied, cost £20,000. The round trip was from Tronsoe, Norway, to Yenisei River, Siberia, and back, and the Correct brought to Immingham 1500 tons of Siberian produce, comprising timber, hemp, flax, goatskins, horse hides, bearskins, pigs' bristles, and dead calves, together : with two live camels, two young bears, a wolf, and two deer. "On board on the outward journey was Dr Nansen, as expert, together with other distinguished passengers. Dr Nansen left the vessel on September 3 to go furtheT up the River Yenisei, with a member of the Russian Duma and the Russian. Secretary to the Norwegian Ambassador, in a motor boat placed at their disposal by the Russian Government. The intention of Dr Nansen, it is stated, is to travel in China, where tho Yenisei River rises, and back to Europe." —Four Miles through the Alps.— "The Mont d'Or tunnel between France and Switzerland, on which boring operations began nearly three years ago, has just been completed." says the Mail. "The tunnel, which is three miles and three-quarters long, bores through the Jura Mountains from Frasne to Vallorbe, thus obviating an 11mile detour by Pontarlier, and should have been pierced two months ago. The work, however, was delayed by the tapping of a number of unsuspected springs, which' had to be pumped dry. "The line, by shortening the journey from Paris to Lausanne, will bring the winter resorts of the Jura Mountains many hours nearer London." This is the ninth important tunnel in Europe. —Wireless Developments. — "Important developments in the direction of extension of the Marconi Company's operations are impending," says the'Chronicle. "Two new long-distance stations are to be erected, one at Sheffield in Great Britain and the other at Buenos Aires, South America. In connection with these, and with the new long-dis-tance wireless service they are to provide, 18 enormous steel masts are to be erected, each of which will be 600 ft in height." —Diesel's Wonderful Engine.— Tlie presumed tragic death of Dr Diesel at sea calls attention once more to the marvel of his oil engine. "The form of motor with which Dr Diesel's name is associated is one in which the fuel in*its original and natural form, without having previously undergone any transforming process, is directly converted into work in the cylinder of the engine," says The Times. "Air alone :\s drawn into the cylinder on the chargmj stroke, and on the return stroke is compressed to a high pressure, over 400 : per square inch, whereby its temperature is raised to incandescence; "Then by means of air stiil more highly comprcsred' a charge of fuel oil is injected into the cylinder, where it immedi ately ignites. Properly speaking, there is no explosion ; the oil merely burns, and in so doing gives the power impulse, without producing pressures in excess of those of the oil and air injection. .Dr Diesel claimed that his engine secures better heat utilisation than airy other known kind of heat engine." —Aero Char-a-banc. — Mr Louis Noel has made an ascent in the "aero char-a-banc" at Hendon, carrying nine passengers. —Canoe with Aeroplane Screw. — A canoe driven by a 7 h.p. motor-cycle engine actuating an a: roplane tractor screw has recently made its appearance in America. It has attained a speed of 50 miles an hour.