Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 18, 6 May 1909, Page 715

Science Siftings

BY • VOLT

New Electric Lamp. The new electric lamp of Robert Hopfelt, as tested tv Germany, is claimed to combine the resistance to shock of the carbon lamp with the economy of the mercury-vapor lamp. It has a carbon filament fused into a U-shaped tube, which contains a drop of mercury and an inert gas to transmit the heat to it, and the tube itself is fused into a bulb, giving the whole the appearance of an ordinary incandescent lamp. The energy consumption per candlepower is about 60 per cent, less than that of the ordinary carbon-filament lamp. On first turning on the current, the filament glows with about the usual consumption per candle-power, but as the mercury becomes vaporised the light increases, reaching more than double the ordinary intensity in five minutes. The light is pure white, without objectionable blue or green rays. Machine-made Window Glass. It was long believed to be impossible to make windowglass by a mechanical process, but American ingenuity has overcome the obstacles, and this glass is now made, in all sizes and thicknesses, by the Colburn process. Such glass cannot be made by pressure, because the surfaces thus produced are imperfectly transparent. The method of allowing the molten glass to fall through a narrow slit was also tried without success, for the surfaces became striated. The process of drawing, by lifting the molten glass in sheets, was finally adopted, but this required many ingenious devices to prevent the glass from contracting into columnar, or cylindrical, forms. All these difficulties have been overcome, so that it is no longer necessary to produce transparent sheets of glass solely by the old blowing methods. Lions in South Africa. In Rhodesia lions still give a good deal of trouble, even venturing upon the town lands of Buluwayo. In Zululand there are still several in the game preserves. In the early days of South. Africa the lions had a very luxurious, easy-going life of it, for game was then plentiful. The springbok and blesbuck covered the plains in their hundreds of thousands, and when on the approach of the dry season they were migrating northward the ' lions would leisurely trot along, like camp followers, in the rear, and dine off venison whenever they had a mind to. In those days the lion fulfilled his mission in life in keeping down the too rapid increase of herbivorous animals, which would otherwise have denuded the country of its vegetation; but on the advent of man with his gun, the lion was no longer needed, and his extinction began and is proceeding. African Elephants. Experiments have recently been made in the basin of the Congo (says a writer in the Weekly Telegraph) to train elephants for transport service, for the question of transport appears to be one of the most difficult with which the Congo administration has to deal. The African elephant, heretofore of value only for his ivory, may in future contribute in no small measure to a solution of the problem in regions difficult of access by other means. The experiments which have been carried out up to the present show that elephants can be used to advantage for porterage work in regions where the opening up of the country is most difficult, because of lack of transportation facilities. Contrary to the general belief that Central African elephants could. not be tamed, and made to perform the same service as their Asiatic fellows in India, a bulletin is said to have been issued by the Congo Government, announcing the complete success of certain experiments' conducted at an ' elephant farm ' at Api, in the Uele district in the northern section of the Congo State. Here a small herd of young elephants has been found in captivity for several years, and finally, after much effort in training them, satisfactory results have been obtained. The director of the elephant station, in an official report, says that these experiments demonstrate that the African elephants can live in captivity, and that by good treatment they can be induced to perform labor. Already the oldest members of the elephant farm at Api execute the porterage and traction work of the station. They carry drivers on their backs, and pack saddles with loads. None of the animals is more than seven years old, and since the Indian elephants are most efficient at the adult age, 15 years it is believed that even better results may be looked for. '

For Children's Hacking^.Cough at night Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, 1/6 and 2/6