Science Sittings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 39, 26 September 1907, Page 35

Science Sittings

By •Volt'

■ The World's Greatest Tunnel. What ' Le Matin ' describes as the greatest tunnel in the world will be built to connect Marseilles wrthithe Rhone. It will be a canal as well as a "tunnel,, land will have to pass under hills which will necessitate a tunnel four and thred-eights miles long. As the width will be over twenty-four yards and the height fifteen and a half yards, it means the removal of 2,136,000 cubic metres of material," as compared with 1,058,000 for the Simplon tunnel. The total cost of the canal and tunnel will be over £3,000,001), of which the expense for the tunnel will be £1,700,000. Paper from Corn Stalks. The problem of providing for the enormous consumption of paper caused by the immense number of newspapers and books published in our time, which cannot possibly be supplied much longer with the material manufactured from wood pulp, has practically been solved, it is declared, by a German engineer named Drewsen. He has invented a process through which all kinds of paper can be made out of corn stalks. The new process provides for the removal of the outside covering and the making of the marrow into a pulp, with which paper of the finest quality can be manufactured at a cost much lower than the wood ' pulp process at present in use. Owing, to the large quantity of corn raised in every country, it is predicted that the new process will provide the world with all the paper it needs if the supply oosf s wood should become exhausted. Largest Building Stone. The walls of the Acropolis at Baalbek are truly called Cyclopean. The famous Trili'thon, the largest stones ever used in building, measure respectively 65, 64, and 63 feet in length, each block weighing about 750 tons. How these huge masses were accurately placed in position twenty feet above the ground is a problem) which modern science, with all its appliances, leaves yet unsolved. Above them are Arab fortifications. The quarries whence these gigantic materials were obtained are among the most interesting features of Baalbek. Here may still be seen the method of work of the ancient quarry-men, stones vertically hewn lying almost ready to the hand of the builder. One of these stones, to which the Arabs give the name Hajar-el-Houbla, measures 69 feet in length and weighs 915 tons. It has been calculated that it would take the united efforts of 40,000 men to put this huge block in motion. TRis quarry is now used as a necfopolis by the inhabitants of Baalbek. Mirrors in the Middle Ages. In the middle ages, when steel and silver mirrors were almost exclusively used, a 1 method of blacking' glass for the same purpose with thin sheets of metal was known. Small convex mirrors of glass were made in Germany before the sixteenth century, and were in demand until comparatively modern times. They were produced by blowing small glass globes, into which while they were hot was passed through a pipe a mixture of tin, antimony, and resin. When the globe was coated inside it was allowed to cool and was afterwards cut into convex lenses, which formed small but well-de-fined images. About Birds. Birds belong to the vertebrates or backboned animals. - They are distinguished from the rest of the vertebrates by the graceful outlines of their bodies, by their clothing of' feathers, toothless jaws, and' the forelimbs or wings being adapted to flying. Nature has made many wonderful provisions in the bird, especially in the formation and arrangement of the bones. These are compact and in many cases hollow, thus combining: lightness with strength. The first bone of the backbone is so feebly jointed to the skull that birds can turn their heads around and look directly back.

A cockey ' out west named McLure . Had suffered from coughing and chills, He saved up his money like bees getting honeY And never would spend on his ills. v At last in despair and much pain, He opened his purse did McLure, & OTI £ 'bawbees ' went bang, but the praises he sang ■Of Woods' Great Peppermint Cure.