MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 3611, 29 May 1923, Page 51

MULTUM IN PARVO

The stars are divided into two great streams, moving in opposite directions, according to a Lhitch astronomer. Freah water cels travel a distance equal to a quarter o£ the earth’s circumference—about 6000 miles —in their lives. - Shoeblacks, once so common in London, are gradually disappearing. There are now about 400 left of the 2000 who used to earn a living by cleaning boots. Gills are said to beat boys in the study of modem languages, English literature, music, and technical ability, but not in creative work, and history, or in originality. - The thinnest camera in the world has just been invented by an American; it measures only half an inch in thickness and weighs 12oz. —“Big Ben,” London’s famous clock, has a rival in Sun Francisco. The latter’s minute hand is lift long, but “Big Ben” beats this by 3ft. A cow, a sheep, and a pig are being added to the “Zoo” of St. Louis, U.S.A., as so many children in that city have never teen these animals. Correniuirq a new gas recently made by an electric process in Los Angeles for use in airships, is non-inflammable, nonexplosive, cheap, and easy to produce. A young Hungarian engineer, 22 years of age, named Joseph Dezsoffy (reportsKeuter from Budapest) has invented an apparatus for extracting electric current from the air without the least expense. The chief feature of his device is a mast similar to those which are used for wireless telegraphy, and the electric energy gained from the air varies according to the height of the mast. He claims that he would be able to reach 40.000 volts at an altitude of 900 ft. The inventor has fitted several houses with his apparatus, supplying electric current for their lighting. It has been observed that the current is strongest at noon and weakest at about midnight. The latest thing in mechanical novelties is a wireless doll, who had just made her bow in Paris. The doll is clothed in princess style, and hidden beneath her cor sage is a wireless receiving outfit. When the apparatus is set in order the doll’s owner may embrace her toy and at certain moments of the day listen to a popular song rendered by a well-known singer, or a familiar tune played in the concert room of the Eiffel Tower; but there is only one feature which is likely to detract from the popularit of the wireless doll, except in the case of millionaires, and that is its price—£l6. —ln a lecture to the Royal Society cf Arts recently Sir William H. Bragg explained that although atoms were so small that ordinary light waves were useless in investigating them, tile use of X-rays (which differed only from ordinary light in the fact that they Pad wave length of only about one-ten-thousandth as much as that cf light) enabled us to study the-arrange-ment of atoms in crystals and to measure the distances between them. It was now quite certain that crystalline carbon, or diamond, consisted of an arrangement of units of carbon atoms, each unit being formed of five atoms, of which four were arranged at the corners of a tetrahedron and one at the centre of the latter. Ihe hardenss of the diamond was due to the closeness of the packing which the arrangement permitted, and to the simplicity of the structure. A structure built up of tetrahedrons of this kind would be seen to have planes of cleavage, along which shear could take place relatively easy, and this was a property well known to diamond cutters. By removing a layer of carbon atoms as found in the diamond structure, and then giving a definite twist to the layer, another stable position could ba found for it. 'lire connection with the aJjjacent layers was then vastly w-eakened, and the structure was that of graphite, which owed its lubricating properties to the ease with which its atomic layers could be sheared. llow many people know that there are gold mines in Ireland? They are situated in Wicklow, and although they are not worked to-day, at one period in their history they produced nearly £15,000 worth of gold. These mines were discovered accidenlallj in 1775 by a poor schoolmaster. He picked up a piece of metal which he proved to be gold. His wife refused to believe him, and told her friends that he was mad. But the story soon become pub lie property, and thousands of rieople rushed to the spot. So keen was the struggle that an armed guard was supplied by the Government to keep the vast crowds away. In the two months which elapsed between the publication of the story and the Government’s seizure of the mines more than 25f100z of gold were collected by peasants. But when the authorities started to work the mines in a regular manner the same success was not achieved. Between £2OOO and £4OOO worth of gold was produced, and as the mines cost very much more than this to run they were closed down. The gold was of extraordinary purity, and was found in pieces of all sizes, the largest being a nugget weighing 220 z. her manufacture of chemicals in the open for all to see, Hit a gigantic laboratory of hers lias been in existence for innumerable centuries in the mountainous parts of Moghuiislan, Central Asia, much to the. good of commerce there. How long ago it is since pure sulphur, alum, salarrimonia were first gathered on the To Shan, or While Mountain, some 60 miles north of Kucha, it is, not possible to state. As long ago as the filih century Chinese travellers chronicled their visits to this vast laboratory, the smoke of which is visible some 25 miles away. Continually is the rugged Po Sri an, the bulk of which extends about two miles, sending out smoke and fire from the caves and gorges on its sides and summits. In certain of them a kind of dark mud is produced, which oozes out into the open, and then changes to salammoniac. Jn order to collect it, the people put on shoes with wooden soles, for soles of leather would be burnt through. The salammoniac of the White Mountain goes far throughout Central Asia, much use being made of it in dysentery and the many skin diseases of the Mid-Asiatics. The Po Shan is no active volcano, for Musketoff and other famous Russian geologists have established, from personal investigation, that volcanoes do not exist in Mid-Asia. 'I he White Mountain —so called from the surface deposits of alum—is part of an extensive coal range, and its fires proceed from the burning mineral, though the discharges of smoko and sulphurous and other fumes, together with the subterranean rumblings, are rather identical with the phenomena of •n active volcano. The l’o Shan lies in the lofty Ailak Mountains.