SCIENCE AND INVENTIONS.

Western Star, 7 February 1922, Page 4

SCIENCE AND INVENTIONS.

.j IHFJZ.Z LUNAR life, Observations made from August, 1920, to February, 1921, by Professor William Henry Pickering, of Harvard, who Is one of the world's leading astronomers and an authority on lunar and Martian phenomena, prove beyond doubt, he assorts, that lifesi.if! exists on the moon. The prolei ,sui' bases his assertions on a series of telescopic photographs of a crater with a circumference of 37 miles. Hundreds of photographic reproduc-. tions have, it is seated, proved iiyefu'tably tlie springing up at,, dawn, with an unbelievable raidity, of va.?t ii"'(\, of foliage, which come into»full bios,.;oin just as rapidly, and which disappear in a maximum period of 11 days. The plates also show that great blizzards, snowstoi'uHs, and volcanic eruptioiiii are frequent. "We find,'' says the professor, " a Living world' at our very docr>, where life in seme respects resembles that of Man? —a world which the astronomical profession has in past years utterly icglected and ignored.''

THE NEAREST STABS.. There are ko many stars in the sky chat il is possible to devote special '••t.udy only to relatively few. Thus, j'ltil the other day, no particular •:;U>ntion was drawn to Barnard's ,ar, as it its called.' That it finally attracted notice -was due merely to the fact that it sojemed to be travel- | ling through the heavonis at extra- j ordinary speed. .. A passenger on a railroad train sees the telegraph p Iks itylug rapidly past. Houses iir tho middle' distance i-,eem to move morn i -dowry, a, steeple in the far background of the landscape much slower yet. The effect would be the same if iV.o train were standing still, and ih«> ?;>!c.s, hoilmen ami steeple all in motion at equal speed. The inference, then, in the case of the star, wqs that it was probably rather near to us, but fc it wa.s a istirprise to discover, on* measurement of its parallax, that it was only «ix and a third ''light rears'' distant from the earth. Il is a small sun much lei;s in size than uii own solar orb and our ncamst neighbour in the heavens, with the 'xeoption tif Alpha C'entaiivi, which | is four and a-third light years distant | V'voai u«. Alpha Ceiitauri ■is a '" double'' or two isuns, each about the same rsize as ours, which revolve abe u I a common centre of gravity, fhe next nearest star is Sirius, which s the brightest stellar luminary in tile northern heavens. It is nearly nine light years distant. Next come J/iscios Australis, 2o light year.j; Arcsuras, 43 "light years; Beta Crucis, 64 light years, and Alpha E'ridani, 100 ight years. A light year is the distance travelled in a twelve-month by a ray of light moving 'IB'J,OOO miles a second. ■ ~ .

TRIFLES WORTH FORTUNES.' There may be more money in a iiifiip'j- invention than in a big one. Consider the familiar moui;e trap. That little contrivance fy-as the inrentiou of a New England Yankee, unhony D. DavN, of Watertown, '.V,m!ecticiit, who patented it in 1809/ lie made a large fortune 'by it. .The patent, or cour.se, rau out long ago, but at the present time mousetraps rf this (pattern are manufactured- by million* in Connecticut and Masif.--.'•i:<:etK ' George A. Mitchell was a. poor tar'mor residing in tho village of Turner-, M!e., 00 years age. .Hii?

• iiildren picked' the toes out of their ■ iir-i, faster than 'he could afford to buy new ones. It occurred to him to out out pieces from a sheet of copper that happened to be handy and fasten them over the tecs. Thus fortified, one pair of shoes, he found, would last three times the 'ordinary length f time. He patented the idea, making his claim cover shqe-tips of | 'diver or other niotals (with preferonce, however, for copper), and it brought hi in more juoncy than a lifetime of farm work'.could have yielded. C.'inndall, oi "building block", fame, ivas engaged in the .manufacture of croquet sets. It was half a century ago, wlien croquet was a popular outdoor sport. He hit upon the notion of economising cost by putting- the boxes together with wooden /teeth that would fit into corresponding opening's along each opposite edge. Thug their parts could 'he assembled! easily, without nails or glu<s. It so chanced that at this very time Crandall's small daughter ■wan sick with measles. To amuse her he showed her some pieces of his croquet boxes, and she found such delight in [putting them together that he was persuaded to adopt the idea for a new kind of building blocks. Granda 11 was a born inventor. It ivas he who originated . the "pigs in clover" puzzle, which became so great a rage. Unfortunately, he was so 1 far from realising its commercial value that he failed to patent it. Rather exasperating ig the obviousness of many patented ideas that have brought fortune to their originators. Takq r for instance, the ]>ennison shipping tag. The trouble with such tags nmed to be that they would tear out at the tie-hole. How easy to surround the tie-hole with a cardboard reinforcement.. ■ was the whole of Dorinjson's invention, ami it netted him a tidy fortune. There wins a man, Hyimm L. Lipman, who noticed that when writing with a lead .pencil it was inconvenient to reach for a piece of rubber to rub something: out. It is the habit of a piece of erasing; rubber to d.isappea'r mysteriously, but it' the butt end of the pencil contains a small eraser, it cannot get away. This was the idea that 13truck Mr Ly;man, who patented it. It brought him a fortune.