Science Sittings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 18, 7 May 1908, Page 35

Science Sittings

Not a Modern Invention. It is a. popular fancy that fountain pens are quite a modern invention. As a matter of fact, an old worjc of reference published ♦int 1795 contains an illustration Of a fountain pen, the appearance .of which is very much like those sold at the present time. Its construction, however, was somewhat elaborate and clumsy, the pen consisting of Various pieces 1 of metal, which had to be screwed and unscrewed before tlhe pen. could* he used. . Largest Hanging Bell. What is perhaps the largest hanging bell in the -world is to-be seen in Mamdalay. This is the Mdngun bell, on the right bank ..of the Irawadi, almost opposite the city of Mandalay. This immense bell measures as follows : Height to crown, 12 feet ; diameter at the lip, 16 feet 3 inches ; thickness of metal, from 6 io 12 Inches". It weighs about 80 tons and is suspended on_._ three massive round beams of teak placed horizontally .the one over the other, their ends resting on two pilfars of enormous size, composed of masonry and large -.upright teak posts. This bell was cast at the end of the eighteenth century under the superintendence of the reigning king. _ ..^ Rapid" Writing. A rapid penman can write thirty words a minute. To do this he must draw his pen through the space of a rod, sixteen and one-half feet. In forty minutes his, pen travels' a furlong, and in five hours and a third a full ' mile. 'He makes on an average sixteen curves or turns of the pen for each word written. Writing at the rate of thirty words per minute, he must make eight curves to each second, in an hour 28,t!O0, in five hours 144,000, and 'in 300 days, working only five hours each day, he makes not less than 43,200,000 curves and turns of the pen. Here we have in the aggregate a mark of 800 miles long to be traced on paper by a single writer in a year. In making each latter of the alphabet we make from three to seven strokes of the pen, on an average three and a half to lour. Thousands of Tons of Concrete. Engineers on the Panama Canal are dealing in vast figures these days, and the ' Canal Record ' conveys in a graphic manner an Idea of the magnitude of the work to be clone upon the locks of the canal. It is stated that the amount, of concrete to be used in building these locks would suffice to construct 22,842 eight-room city houses of the generous size of thirty by thirty feet, with two storeys and basement, and with concrete floors and concrete roof. Allowing each of these houses a seventy-five foot lot they would make a continuous street from New \ ork to Philadelphia, with enough houses left over to make a row on one side of the street from Philadelphia to Washington- The houses would furnish suburban homes for $20,000 people, or, according to city standards, would house a population equal to that of Christchurch and Dunedin. Ashes as a Fertilizer. ', Those- -who have open .grate fireplaces 6*r wood stoves in which a large quantity" Qf wood is burned have in the ashes a valuable product for their gardens. The ashes v.afy" in fertilizing value according to the qiuality of the fuel from which they are produced, but anyone who knows their importance as a plant food will not allow those. from any source to be wasted. Ashes from hard -wood contain greater fertilizing constituents than ifaosevJicom, the soft varieties." . The wood burned iw grates as invariably of a hard character, and is, therefore, 1 among, the best for making fertilizing ashes. Wood ashes contains jt large proportion of potash, and for this reason ' they maW'one of the "best manures for grains, grasses, vegetables, and fruit trees'. Sbot from chimneys !|nd coal stoves is also a product worth reserving as a' ferttlizer.'-'i "Aside from its value in adding plant food to the' soil, it tends to drive away many insect pests, and it also holds some plant diseases in check. Like ashes, soot must not be exposed to the rain before it is distributed upon the soil.