SCIENTIST’S DISCOVERY.
Limits of Safety Defined for Climbers. LONDON, December 8. That “ Only poets can soar safely into the empyrean ” is the conclusion of Sir Leonard Hill, the British scientist, as a result of experiments, in which he watched the effect of withdrawing oxygen from a steel chamber containing animals. A monkey slept when the densitv of the oxygen was one-sixth of that in the air at the earth’s surface. A goat began to die when the density reached one-seventh. Mice and other small animals were tougher. Birds withstood rarefication to one-nmth of normal air density. Drowsiness gave the first warning of danger; convulsions caused by a stoppage of lung action followed. When oxygen was restored, the animals recovered. Sir Leonard Hill declared that the symptoms corresponded with those experienced by climbers and airmen in high altitudes. The safety limits of heights appeared to be 20.000 feet for airmen and climbers breathing the surrounding air. and 50,000 for airmen breathing supplies of oxygen.
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Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 643, 22 December 1932, Page 14
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163SCIENTIST’S DISCOVERY. Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 643, 22 December 1932, Page 14
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