Scientific and Useful

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 6, 10 August 1907, Page 46

Scientific and Useful

THi: BEST BUTTER IN THE WORLD.

The discussions in the Press on butter blending and adulteration are educating public opinion as to what to use and avoid in the various brands on the market. “Country Life” has taken the practical step of submitting various brands of butter —English, Danish, Italian, Brittany, and others—to an analyst, who kept them for a certain period. The analyst knew nothing about the country of origin of the butter. In the result, the Italian was the worst, and the English proved the cleanest and best sample; it was the richest and the best made butter. The result, as far as it goes, proves that the best butter in the world is obtained from Jersey cows fed on English pastures; no foreign or colonial butter is quite equal to the best made in England. There are butters made in Normandy and New Zealand equal to that found in any other part of the world; but then these never reach the consumer exactly as they leave the dairy. The choicest samples are mixed with those less good. English and Scottish dairies, too, are now turning out butter superior to that which is sent out from Normandy or Denmark. The cheap butters are often made, under insanitary conditions, of inferior fats and other substances, with colouring matter added to hide defects.

FALLS OF IGUAZU.

Attention has been called in “Cassier’s Magazine” for April to the wonderful cataract of Iguazu on the Upper Parana, • t the junction of the three great States of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, as a possible source of natural power in South America. It is about twelve days’ journey by rail and river from Buenos Ayres. As Niagara has been harnessed, and the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi may be exploited, Mr Henry Harley points out that, there is here as great a possible source of power, which might be carried for hundreds of miles, while there are other lesser waterfalls in the district which could also be harnessed. The cataract of Iguazu is more, than double the width of Niagara, and about one third higher. There is a plan for the conversion of the surrounding country into a park.

DECORATED PREHISTORIC CAVES,

News has come from explorers that yet another prehistoric cave has been discovered in the French Pyrenees of Ariege. This time the mural drawings which form the special interest, of the find have been discovered in the very heart of a mountain, eight hundred feet from the entrance and from the light. They were discovered try accident by two travellers, who fortunately drew a plan of the cave, and warned M. Cartailhac and M. Salomon Reinach, the Trench authorities on prehistoric matters. Thu cave is ornamented with designs of thirty bisons, with horses, stags, and wild goats, all drawn in black and with considerable talent in the now recognised Palaeolithic style. The tone of colour is exactly that of other caves known as prehistoric, of which this is considered as perhaps th<» most ancient.

The curious red signs found elsewhere are not lacking here too. Arrows black and red are to lie seen drawn on the flanks of seven bisons. It is believed that the images played a supposed magical part in these caves.

RAISING OF THE ASSOUAN DAM

Sir William Garstin has recommended that the Assouan dam should be raised by seven metrea, or approximately twenty-three feet, at a cost of about fifteen hundred thousand Egyptian pounds. He observes that there can be no doubt •f the enormous benefit which the Assouan reservoir baa conferred on

Egypt,- the sale value of lands already provided with perennial irrigation having been increased by twenty-four and a-half million Egyptian pounds, while when the canals now in course of construction are completed this figure will rise to over twenty-eight million pounds. In addition to this, the cotton crop, the value of which was estimated last year at twenty-eight million pounds, has been secured. It is estimated that the reservoir now supplies about a quarter of the water which will be eventually necessary for the needs of Egypt. If the dam is raised the water-supply will be more than doubled, and nine hundred and fifty thousand acres of land brought under cultivation.

ELECTRONS.

The brain-racking speculations as to the inherent, nature of electricity, involving as they do still more disturbing questions regarding the nature and very existence of matter itself, can hardly be followed by the ordinary mortal. That all matter of every kind whatever is really composed of corpuscles which are all alike, and which are no tiling but a ‘disembodies electrical charge’ containing in themselves nothing material, is a conception beyond the grasp of the ordinary intelligence. Yet it is to n conception like this that modern physicists appear to be trending. A recent book by Sir Oliver Lodge, entitled “Electrons: or, the Nature, and Properties of Negative Electricity,” will be of interest to those who wish to obtain a grasp of this complex subject.

SOLDERING OF ALUMINIUM.

The autogenous soldering of aluminium or welding by means of the oxyhydrogen or oxy-acetylene blowpipe has occupied the Attention of various experimenters since aluminium first came to be recognised as a very important metal of the future. Hitherto the great difficulty has always been that as soon as the metal was hot enough to flow, it immediately became covere'd by a film of oxide extremely thin, but yet sufficient effectually* to prevent the union of one piece of metal with the other. The problem has been to find a substance which would dissolve or otherwise remove the covering film of oxide; but until lately experimenters in this direction have been baffled. A great many different processes for soldering aluminium with other metals have been introduced from time to time and patented, but the great objection to them all is that electrolytic action is almost invariably set up when aluminium is intimately associated with a different metal, and the resulting corrosion weakens and perhaps destroys the joint. Mr M. U. Sehoop, in an interesting article in the “Scientific American,” describes and illustrates his own process for the autogenous welding of aluminium. From the description given, the process appears to be a simple one; being. in fact, precisely analogous to that of lead-burning, except for the application of the Sehoop reducing liquid, of which no particulars are given. This liquid has the effect of preventing the formation of the film oxide, and of rendering quite easy the junction of the two metals when heated sufficiently under the blowpipe.

A NEW CASH REGISTER AND AUTO MATIC CHANGEGIVER.

The public are now so used to seeing and hearing of new inventions of marvellous ingenuity, mechanical exactness, and reliable action, all tending towards the saving of time and labour in every path of life, that it may therefore not be surprised to learn that another remarkable. mechanical marvel in the shape of a new cash register has just been invented. One of the many unique

features in this machine is that it not only docs, the essential things that the registers so well known to the public accomplish, but ( in addition actually handles the money, and by instantaneous mechanical action calculates and gives out whatever change is required. It achieves what has up to the present been declared impossible- by the world’s mechanical engineers, and as a cash register stands unique and by itself in this pari ieular class of machinery. There are no cash-lirawers to be manipulated, the money in the machine being contained in columns, the coins finding their way automatically ’ into these columns irrespective of their size or value. This is accomplished by means of slots in a slide placed at an angle in the machine, by which they fall into their proper places, the weight of each individual coin being sufficient in itself to carry it along this angled slide until it finds its home. The coins for the required change, as given out from the bottom of these columns fall on to their edges and roll down an inclined plane into a receptacle, from which they may lie taken by the customer direct if desired. In manipulating the machine to gain these results, keys are depressed in the usual manner, and a feature of this register is the fact that, unless each individual transaction is recorded by this means, it will not give out the change required. By the action of the depression of the keys the mechanism automatically calculates the exact amount required for change from any given amount, and instantaneously gives out the same. No calculation of any necessary amount is needed, the machine doing all this by means of two sets of keys, the one set representing the amount, of a purchase, the other set the amount of coin tendered, the difference between these two amounts being the change required. The amount of every purchase is shown at the back of the machine to the customer, and at the front to the operator; and continuously, with the working of the machine, it is automatically adding together every individual purchase, giving the grand total, which is to be seen only by the proprietor or those so entitled. Again, it is at the same time printing on a tape every individual amount, giving a most complete check upon the transactions, while the total of such impressions must of necessity tally with the grand total. This automatic, cash register and change-giver is of a very compact size, and somewhat resembles in style the cash registers in use, and the manufacturers of this machine have undoubtedly taken a great stride forward in this class of public commodity. Another machine made by the same company is an appliance by which, on the machine being filled with a certain amount of money, any desired sum from it is automatically given out, such as is required in the paying of wages; this machine, in its mechanical action, being an adaptation of the cash register, its mechanism being similar with regard to its automatic sorting, adding, and printing apparatus. This machine will unquestionably be the means of an enormous saving of time and trouble to the employers of labour, seeing that the machine accomplishes what can at present only be done by a staff.