Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 25, 21 June 1906, Page 29

Science Siftings

By «Volt»

Lightning and Thunder. When a period of five seconds elapses between a flash pf lightning and thunder, the flash is a mile distant from the observer. Thunder has never been heard ce c V 44 t mi 2m i2O S fr ° m thG flaSh> though artiller 7 has been Wireless Telegraphy. The 'New York World ' says that the wireless operator on the French liner ' La Province/ when 1800 miles from Poldhu and 1700 miles from Cape Cod, on April 25 simultaneously communicated with both stations, and re^ ceived messages from both. This is the first time this feat has been accomplished. A Meteor's Flight. A brilliant fireball seen in England on December 30 has been studied by Mr. Alexander>4loss from about 50 reports of observations. It seems to have become vislbl< \ % % £ u heig £ n °? 6^ miles ° v er a point eight miles west of Thornhill in Dumfneshire, and it travelled about 64 miles with a velocity of about 15 miles per second, finally disappearing at a height of 31 miles above the sea seven, miles south of Arran. _ A remarkable luminous trail persisted for nearly a quarter of an hour. The meteor was seen as much as 150 miles away and at 50 miles was perhaps 100 times as bright as Jupiter. - Calculation shows that the mass whose burning gave such a brilliant display over a great part of the British Isles was astonishingly small— probably a few ounces, possibly a few pounds. The Weight of Rain. We talk about ' only an inch ' as if an inch of rain (says the Sydney ' Stock and Station Journal ') were a trifling matter. An inch of rain weighs a hundred tons to the acre. When you think of the people up on Vhe Johnson River in Queensland getting fourteen feet in a season, and then reckon up the weight, you gasp ! It ought to crush the earth flat. When Nyngan got six inches in one fall, it seems wonderful to think of six hundred tons to the acre of water ! Mr. Hunt, the Act-ing-Government Meteorologist, has been figuring things out, and he estimates that during the period of a tortnight the quantity of rain that fell in New South Wales amounted to 14,663,644,800,008 gallons, the total weight of this vast volume of water being approximately 63,463,700,000 tons. A Long Sleep. The stupor of the alligators is the most complete. For six months they neither breathe nor eat. The frogs burrow into the mud and cover themselves completely over with it. They are able to maintain life without stirring or eating, and probably without breathing for an almost indefinite time. But the snakes are the most extraordinary. They sleep the winter through in pairs or little groups of half a dozen. They occasionally crawl into the holes in the ground, and last spring a man encountered a ball c f snakes in plain sight on the level ground. Deceived by the early warmth, the reptiles had left their snug and cosy winter retreat to start on their summer travels. But the weather turned chilly, and, finding it impossible to regain their den before the cold seized them, they coiled themselves round one another for mutual warmth and protection. A New Use for Glass. A practical inventor and scientist, M. Garchey, known all over France, has made a very interesting experiment in, Lyons. He has discovered an entirely new method of melting all kinds of old glass and transforming it into material as hard and serviceable as Belgian Wocks. In 1898 he obtained permission from the municipal authorities of Lyons to pave a portion of one of their main streets with this new material, and thus prove to the world the value of his discovery. The street selected was a principal thoroughfare, which was under continuous and 'heavy traffic, and yet the glass is still as sound as when first put down. M. Garchey claims Jor ' ceramo-crystal,' as he calls it, that it can be manufactured at a much more reasonable figure than any other reliable building material now on the market in Europe or America, and that it is practically indestructible. It is also highly attractive and artdstic in appearance, and M-. Garchey fully expects to see it flaking the. place of the building materials now in use.