Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 1 October 1908, Page 35

Science Sif tings

£V ' VOLT

Skyscrapers. The New York Building* Department has approved the plans for the highest building in the world. It is proposed to be erected for the EquitaMe Life Assurance Society on the Broadway,,, to have 62 storeys, and to be 1000 feet from the pavement to the roof, and to cost ;£> ,000,000. To guard^-against fire the staircases are to be enclosed in fireproof partitions with iron -doors. Submarine Navigation. The idea of the submarine is certainly as much as 200' years old, but most of the earlier plans were flat failures. In 1774 an inventor named Day lost his life during an experimental descent in Plymouth Sound. Bushnell, of Conecticut,'in 1775, contrived a submarine vessel propelled by some~ kind of screw. Robert Fulton also in 1796 invented a box* which when filled with combustibles might be propelled under water and made to explode under the bottom of a ship. It is hard to say who was the originator of the idea of the submarine boat unless it was Day. Why Frogs are Cold. Many boys have probably wondered why frogs are cold Jo the touch, and some of them look upon these little creatures with a sort of horror, believing that they have no blood. But such is not the case, for they have not only blood, but they possess nerves and can feel. Perhaps if this was more generally known there would not be so many heartless boys, who seem to take special delight in torturing frogs and toads According to scientists, frogs are cold-blooded because they consume but little air. It is the same with fishes. Without a plentiful supply of air there is not much animal heat because of slow combustion. Told from the Pulse. ' The pulse always beats faster in the case of women than it does in men,' said a physician, 'and from birth to death the pulse speed steadily decreases. I have no doubt that, by the pulse alone, I could tell readily the age and sex of the average healthy person. Babies at birth have" a pulse that beats 160 times a minute in the case of girls and 150 times a minute in the case of boys. At the age of four or five the pulse bears will have fallen respectively to no and 100. Maidens' and youths' pulses average 95 and 90. Mature women's and men's average 80 and 75. Elderly women's and men's average 60 and So. In the case of an old woman the pulse rarely, if ever, sinks below 50, but among old men a pulse under 50 is fairly common.' Weight of the Body. There are several fallacies which are common with regard to the weight ot the human body. The man who congratulates himself on his gain of several pounds in weight over a given period may have no cause for rejoicing, for he may be under a delusion. Very few persons have a correct idea of their weight. As a matter of fact, the weight of' the "body is continually changing owing to innumerable influences. On a warm day after breakfast a man will lose more than a third of a pound per hour. Seventy per cent, of the body consists of water, and its weight varies constantly. The inference to be drawn from the. loss or gain of a pound or two may be mistrusted. Fluctuations of a few ounces- are a sign that the body is in a healthystate. The Panama Canal. More than half the excavation necessary to complete the famous Culebra Cut, where most of the' digging at Panama has to be done, has been finished, as shown in the graphical statement of yardage recently prepared by the Isthmian Canal Commission, and all the other work required to enable ships to pass through the interoceanic waterway has made proportionate progress since Americans relieved the French of the great project. Scarcely less interesting, and giving a. most informing picture of the remarkable development of canal plans" to meet modern steamship practice, is the typical, cross section" of the deep cut, which contrasts the little ditch the French were digging with the splendid canal which the are making practicable for speedy navigation by the largest vessels likely to^be designed in manyyears.

His Excellency the Governor (Sir Gearge Strickland) and Lady Strickland, who had been on a six months' visit to Epgland, have returned to Tasmania.