SCIENCE NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3168, 2 December 1914, Page 68

SCIENCE NOTES.

—Wash Your Smoko. —

The New York Edison Company has perfected an apparatus for eliminating the smoke and c.rider nuisance at its great Waterside Station, Now York. The smoke from the boiler plant, laden with soot and cinders, is driven at high speed through a sheet of water, by means of which practically all of the material which constitutes a nuisance is deposited in a big water tank. The recent test showed an average efficiency of extraction of 95 per cent. —Electrified Tobacco.— A curious discovery of concern to all smokers has just been verified. It was suggested some five years ago by a Mr Lusby that electricity, if properly applied, ought to kill all the fungus that is always associated with the tobacco leaf. If this 'ould be done the tobacco would keep in condition indefinitely, and would bo much sweetened, since electricity can convert mould or fungus into a sweet and sterilised form. A quantity of tobacco was accordingly so treated and left for four years. A number of people, including some men of science, wore so struck by tho sweetness of the tobacco and its sound condition after i-ms period that the method is to bo used on a large scale commercially. —Electrolytic Disinfecting Fluid. — Tho use of electrolysed sea water for disinfecting' purposes in hospitals, public baths, schools, etc., in tho borough of Poplar, London, has proved a great success. According to tho recent report of Dr Alexander, the output last year was 66,720 gallons, showing an increase of over 12,000 gallons above tho output for tho previous year. Eighteen thousand gallons were employed in three public baths, being supplied at the rate of 30 gallons for a pool of 85,000 gallons at the first filling, and every two or three days further additions were made. For spraying tho floors of schoolrooms, 1094 gallons were used. The cost of electricity and materials for producing artificial sea water amounted to 656 dollars. Plants for producing the electrolysed fluid are being used in Finland, Buenos Aires, and Rangoon, and a largo plant is being installed at Portsmouth, where actual sea water will be electrolysed in place of the artificial fluid used at other places. —Another Diamond Discovery.— The Berlin newspapers announce that a new process for tho manufacturing of artificial diamonds has been discovered by Dr Werner von Bolton, a chemist in the Siemens and Halsko works there. The doctor observed that ordinary lighting gas decomposed when exposed to the vapour of mercury, and that if the gas is allowed to work on metallic amalgams of mercury, the carbon contained in the gas is liberated, both m a non-crystallised form and in crystals, or diamonds. As tho diamonds obtained were infinitesimal in size, diamond dust was placed in a tube in which gas was dissolved to act as so-called mother crystals. The newly-formed crystals adhere to these, and the result is a larger, but still very small, stone. The amalgam used is natrium. It is placed in a glass tube containing a small quantity of diamond lust, and tho lighting gas is passed through the tube for four weeks. —The Road to Wealth.— In spite of tho groat strides made in chemical science during tho past half century', a wide field remains open to the investigator who will turn his attention to modern commercial needs, and a fortune may be made by the one who succeeos in finding a use for some of the waste material which is now thrown away by mauufac turers. To begin (says Professor Duncan in Harper’s Magazine). 'Away up in the silvermining region of Northern Ontario there exist vast deposits, tons on tons —small hills in fact— of waste silver-extracted residues from tho mines. These residues arc rich in cobalt. . Cobalt is a silver-white metal with a faint suggestion of pink; it is tenacious, it can be readily polished, and it exhibits a high lustre. It may bo considered as a sister to nickel, and a cousin to iron; like iron, for example, it is magnetic. In the metallic stage cobalt has found no application whatever in the arts. —How the Body Grows. — The human body does not grow at an equal rate m all its parts. Roughly speaking, the head and neck from birth to maturity double in length, tho trunk increases throe times, the arms increase four times, the legs five times. And these increases are not uniform. Tho arm, for instance, doubles in length before the fifth year and trebles before the fourteenth; the hand doubles before the seventh and trebles at maturity; the leg doubles in length before the third year and increases fourfold before the twelfth; the thigh shows the greatest increase in the body, being from five to seven times what it was at birth; the foot grows at only half this rate, being a* maturity three and a-half times what it was at birth; in short, the thigh grows more than the log and the leg more than the foot. The foot is said to bo as long as the head is high, but that is only true at about the tenth year, and after that tho head is the shorter; the foot can bo more easily' compared with the hand, for it is generally as long as the circumference of tho fiat. —Light From the Stars.— Starlight has been measured in comparison with the sunlight, the following results being announced Tho light received from a star of the first magnitude like Yoga is about one forty-thousandeth-millioneth of tho sun’s. Young places the total starlight received by the earth at the value of 3000 first magnitude stars, thus making the whole starlight to tho one-sixtieth that of the full moon. Light has an actual mechanical pres sure, andean bo measured in the laboratory. It has been found that the sun’s light in itself presses against tho earth with a lorco something like 70,000 tons. As the surface of a sphere varies as tho square of tho radius, and as the volume or mass varies as tho cube of the radius, and as the mechanical pressure of light on tho whole surface varies as that surface, and as the force of gravity varies as tho mass —if a sphere was made smaller and smaller it is easily seen that the pressure of light does not decrease so fast as the force of gravity; so bodies beyond a certain minuteness could not reach the sun, but would_ be repelled by the mechanical force of its light. —Marine Oil Spreader.— Tho value of oil for calming rough seas has long been recognised. The reason it is not more extensively used is probably because few vessels are provided with special apparatus for distributing the oil properly. When in time of extreme distress a vessel finds it necessary to use some method of quieting tho waves tho only means of dis-

tributing tlio oil is to pour it down tho scuppers, or, as is sometimes done, to fill a canvas bag with oil, perforating the bag so that the oil can escape, and hang the bag over the side of the ship. Sometimes a hose is used to distribute the oil. The difficulty with these methods is that the oil is discharged in the wake of the drifting ship, and as the oil spreads comparatively slowly the ship is constantly moving out of tho quieted area. iMr H. W. Stocking, of San Francisco, has devised an oil distributing apparatus which permits of distributing the oil where needed, and far enough from the vessel to quiet the sea measurably before it reaches the vessel. Furthermore, tho amount of oil discharged may bo controlled accurately from the vessel. Tho apparatus consists merely of a sea or drag anchor which may bo let out from the ship to the required position, and which also carries a flexible pipeline terminating in a nozzie. The oil is delivered through this pipeline to tho nozzle; where it is discharged. Tho distribution of oil may bo controlled by throttling the pipeline. The sea anchor, which may bo of the usual conical form, preferably with an opening in the small end of the cone to prevent the anchor from swaying, serves to retard the drift of the vessel enough to keep it within the area affected by the oil. As tho oil is distributed to windward at a considerable distance from the vessel, this distance being directly under the control of the ship, it may bo discharged at the proper point to quiet tho waves before they reach the vessel.