Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 14 October 1909, Page 1635

Science Sif tings

BY • VOLT

A New Smoke .Consumer. A new locomotive smoke-consumer has been adopted by the New .York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. It is the invention of Charles Schneider, the railroad commissioner of Austria. A train equipped with the . new smoke-consumer on September. -12 ran from New Hayen,Conn., to Springfield, Mass., without the slightest appearance of smoke or cinders. The smoke and cinders are drawn from the firebox into a compartment, where they are consumed, securing greater economy in fuel consumption as well as increased steaming capacity. Simple Barometers. - Country people have a great contempt for. those who cannot tell what the weather is going to be till they have looked at their expensive barometers or seen the weather indications in the morning paper. They have so many simple ways of finding out what they wish to know about the weather, and are so accustomed to doing this, that they make the observations almost mechanically." Ask on© of them how to do this, and he will give you a long list of simple weather gauges. For instance, if you are a smoker, look at your cigar tip. If it burns with a clear, red glow the day will be fine, but if it has a charred end that refuses to bur,n brightly take your iimbrella. If a slipper creaks it is sure to be fine ; if it is silent it will be damp. In damp weather newspapers are easily torn, gloves contract and are difficult to put on, matches will not light easily, silk hats become dull, awning cords are tight, boot laces snap, and a score of inanimate things tell to the initiated that there is rain to come; New Method of Printing Railway Tickets. The American Machinist describes ,a machine called the tesserograph for doing away with the necessity for printing in advance the thousands of various kinds of railway tickets. It says : ' Each ticket is printed separately by a machine from a slip of thick paper, all the necessary particulars, such as station names, date, price, class, etc., being inserted, and on a second paper strip within the machine is printed, as a check, a duplicate of the ticket sold. The money values of the tickets issued are totalised according to classes and series. A machine constructed for the Naples-Rome' line can print and register 400 different kinds of tickets. The various mechanisms are interlocked together, and no tickets can be issued until the inspector in charge, ; upon opening the office in the early morning, has freed the machine and brought all the totals back to zero.' Novel Tireless • Cooker. ' Well, I think I'll heat my coffee for dinner,' said a laborer on one of the many, buildings now going up in the city, a few minutes before noon the other day. ' And he proceeeded to do so without the aid of a fire or even the use of a match. He took his bottle from his handbag and with it went over to the wooden contrivance- in which mortar was mixed. He put about half a shovelful of sand in a corner of the mortar bed, having previously scraped that part of the- "bed dry and clean. Then this laborer took a piece of lime about as large as his two fists. He pushed the lump of lime down into the yielding sand, put his bottle standing upright on the lime, banked up the bottle with sand to hold it in position^ and was ready for the important part of the job. Dipping about a pint of water from a cask near by, the laborer poured it on the mounded sand easily, allowing it to percolate through the coarse grainsV • Putting on a little more sand to hold the bottle in its upright position, he went back to his work. In ten minutes the noon whistle blew, and this laborer went to his fireless heater, took from it his coffee boiling hot in a bottle that had at no time been in __ danger of breaking from the heat, and proceeded to enjoy his homely but hearty, meal, all unconscious that he had performed a very interesting experiment in Nature's chemistry. ' • * :