Science Notes.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 6, 10 February 1909, Page 45

Science Notes.

A four-foot coal seam yield- 6000 tons per acre. Vinegar will successfully clean a dirty powdercaked gun barrel. American turbine engines will be used on two of Japan’s new battleships. To make carbon ink dissolve genuine India ink in common black writing fluid. The human eye can discern an object as small as 1-625 of an inch in diameter. A white tiger, the first ever known, recently was killed by some hunters in Assam. A pound of cork is sufficiently buoyant ■to support an average sized man in water. A telegraphing tyjrewriter that may be attached to any typewriter is a recent invention. A new motor boat is propelled hv an aerial >erew. Under favourable conditions high speed is attained. A new German explosive, the invention of a man named Gehre, is said to be the most powerful yet devised. A patent has been granted a Chicago man on ain electric piano that produces music from 'bells instead of wares. Spirits of nitre will remove ink stains from hard woods, which should be washed with clean water after it is used. A French invention, consisting of bulb thermometers, predicts at sundown whether there will be frost during the night. The waste products of a near-by coal mime are utilized to furnish the city of Amherst, Nova Scotia, with heat and power. Electric railways of the United States have attained a trackage of over 40,000 miles, nearly one-fifth that of the steam lines. The United States, in 1007, produced 160,095,335 barrels of petroleum, an increase of nearly 40,000,000 barrels over 1906. Berlin’s firemen wear water-tight jackets which may be filled from the hose, ■affording the wearer protection from the ■heat. In Japan a company is manufacturing a product from volcanic ashea which is a good substitute for cement for many purposes. Tea is a germicide, according to a Bouton physician, who claims it is an especially rank enemy of the typhoid bacillus. Although the house fly lays eggs, the flesh fly, better known as the “blue Kottle,” produces living larvae, about fifty at a time.

The electrival equipment of the Citnard liner, Mauretania, includes over 250 miles of ca'bles and more than tiOUO sixteen candle power lamps. A Norwegian factory receives power for six turbines from water that’ falls 3287 feet through a tunnel from a lake seven niilen away. Japan is building an 1100-ton torpedo boat to have a speed of thirty-nine miles an hour and to carry a heavy gtwii in addition to four torpedo tubeo. Three parts by weight of boracic acid to one of powdered borax makes a good compound for brazing steel. It should be applied as a paste with water. The addition of three drops of mercury to each ounce of common solder will make a solder fusing at a low temperature for uniting soft metals. For the benefit of outdoor workers who must have their hands free, a German inventor hau brought out a tontshaped umbrella that straps to the shoulders. The railroads of the United States used 18,8.55,691 barrels of oil for fuel in I!M>7, an increase of over 3,000,000 barrels over the preceding year. Th<‘ most productive insect known to science is the termite, or white ant, which has been known to lay eggs at the rate of 80,000 a day for a montli. Gold and silver anodes should be removed from the solution when not in Uise, as the 'bath will dissolve them even when no electricity is passing through them. A recent English invention is a portable circular saw -resemblimg the street outfit of the -scissors grinder, which may Ik‘ moved up to stationary .timber to cut it. Wealthy natives of India have formed a company with 4} 1,500,000 capital to erect at Bombay blast furnaces and a complete steel plant for the utilization of native ores. If plans now under consideration l>e carried out, all railroads entering Paris will be electrified for a considerable distance into the suburbs of the French capital. Much valuable time can lx* saved by covering a. desk top with plate glass, under which data may be spread for ready reference. It also makes a surface that is easily cleaned. Diluted ammonia is the best to use to remove paint from tiling, as some Liles are surfaced with a material which will not resist caustic soda, the solvent most often used. Clean water will remove the surplus ammonia. An English biologist who lias been testing the kinship of different animals by blood analysis, has found that the hippopotamus and pig are cousins, as are the walrus and the horse. But he has -been unable to connect man with the monkey.