Science Sittings

New Zealand Tablet, 26 November 1908, Page 35

Science Sittings

by • volt

Printing Revolution. A machine which may revolutionise both book and newspaper printing has just been invented in Vienna. It is manipulated very much in the same way as a typewriting machine, but instead of a typewritten sheet of paper it produces a matrix ready for -the stereotyper, thus dispensing with the necessity for an ordinary composing machine. Outwardly the machine represents a typewriter, and from seventy to eighty words can be easily printed in a minute. It is claimed that the cost of printing will be reduced by 90 per cent. The inventor is a Viennese journalist, who has already taken out a German patent for his machine. . The Very First Airship. In these days of dirigible balloons, airships, and aeroplanes, the following account of an airship taken from the London Evening Post for December 22, 1709, is of interest : — ' Father Bartholomew Laurent says that he has found out an invention by the help of which one may more speedily travel through the air than any other way, either by land or sea, so that one may go two hundred miles in twenty-four hours.' The airship which was to accomplish this astonishing feat had at the top ' sails wherewith the air is to be divided, which turn as they are directed. 1 There was a rudder to direct the vessel's course, and the body was ' formed at both ends scallopwise. In the cavity of each is a pair of bellows, which must be blown when there is no wind.' A Trip to a Star. ' Let us suppose a railway to have been built between the earth and the fixed star Centaurus,' said the lecturer. 'By a consideration of this railway's workings we can get some idea of the enormous distance that intervenes between Centaurus and us. ' Suppose that I should decide to take a trip on this new aerial -line to the fixed star. I ask the ticket agent what the fare is, and he answers : ' The fare is very low, sir. It is only a cent each hundred miles. ' ' " And what, at that rate, will the through ticket one way cost?" I ask. ' " It will cost you just 2,750,000,000 dollars," he answers. ' I pay for my ticket and board the train. We set off at atremendous rate. ' " How fast?" I ask the brakeman, " are we going?" ' " Sixty miles an hour," says he, " and it's a through train. There are no stoppages." ' " We'll soon be there, then, won't we?" I resume. ' " We'll make good time, sir," says the brakeman. ' " And when will we arrive?" ' " In just 48,663,000 years." ' The Banana Plant. The banana plant is not properly a tree at all. It has no woody fibre. It is a large green fleshy plant, with big leaves six or eight feet long and sometimes two feet broad.' It grows to a height of ten to fourteen feet or even more, according to the variety of plant and the soil and . climate. Each tree produces one bunch of fruit only, which is really the terminal bud of the plant ,just like an ear of wheat or barley. It has no branches, and when the fruit is ready, 'which is twelve or fifteen months from the date of planting, the tree is cut down and done with. But while it is growing up and maturing its fruit it is at the same time sending up from- its roots other young plants or suckers— perhaps eight or nine of them. Each of these will produce its own bunch in turn, some of "them in a couple of months after the parent plant, and there will thus be a regular succession of fruit. Many of these suckers have to be dug up and planted elsewhere, or they would be too thick on the ground. And there is this peculiarity about the banana : You can plant it at any season, and the fruit ripens all the year round. When once a banana field has been planted gut, all that is necessary to be done is" to keep it clear of weeds and keep thinning' out the multiplying suckers. . f-