Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 25 August 1910, Page 1375

Science Siftings

BY ‘VOLT*

Concrete Barges at the Panama Canal.

The first of three concrete barges which will be used in the hydraulic operation at the Panama Canal was recently launched. It draws when complete with dredging pump, motor, and equipment, three feet nine inches. One-quarter inch No. 12 wire mesh has been . used in the wall construction. The behaviour of these barges will be watched with great interest.

Magnificent Railway Carriage.

A magnificent private car, said to be the most sumptuous railway coach ever constructed, has been sent from England to South America for the use of the President of the Argentine Republic. The coach is 78ft long and 10$ft wide, and is constructed of steel. The exterior is painted in cream with gold and blue lining. At one end is the President’s day saloon, a compartment 17ft '3in long, decorated in the Louis XVI. style, with green silk panels and carpet. In this is a real fireplace with mirror above, and means for ventilation. The roof is tastefully carved. There is also a bedroom, a bathroom provided with a 1 needle bath,’ and a study, two spare bedrooms, with one bathroom between them. A kitchen and attendants’ compartment take up the remaining space in this travelling palace, the whole of which is gorgeously decorated.

New Harness for the Waves.

An inventor who is interesting himself in the production of . a wave motor that will successfully harness the force of the ocean waves has been testing a curious apparatus. His idea is to catch the power of a wave on its shoreward journey, and.this is done by means of a small truck with a broad dashboard tail. The wave pushes against this tail and sends the car along its track up the incline of the beach. The car in turn pushes a piston, which has connection with a compressed air tank on the shore. The force of the inbound wave being spent, the force of gravity carries the car back down its track into the surf until it is caught, by the next wave, and so on indefinitely. When too heavy a sea is rolling for the safety of the apparatus, the car can be uncoupled from the piston rod and pulled up on the beach, when it is out of harm’s way. ~

Wireless Mysteries.

While science is engaged in solving mysteries, it is at the same time creating new ones even more puzzling. Wire-less-telegraphy fills the impalpable ether with news and gossip, yet it presents some singular features that are obscure even to the experts. For instance, it is discovered that a wireless station works better by night than by day. Why? Nobody knows. _ Says a writer in the Eevue Scientifique: — 1 Mr. Marconi at first attributed it to . some influence exerted by the sun’s light on the antenna itself. He now believes rather that the upper air, which }ve know is always very rich in irons produced T by the ultraviolet solar rays, absorbs during the day the energy emitted by the station. The effect would seem to be rather complex; it depends on the wave-length of the Hertzian radiations used; it decreases when this wave-length increases. By using . radiations of great wave-length (five miles), Mr. Marconi has even been able to show that the energy received during the day may exceed that received by night-r-just the opposite of what usually occurs. Here we may possibly have a solution that will enable us to lengthen the radius of action of a station independently of what may be gained by increasing the power of the electric plant that serves to produce the energy. Unfortunately it is not easy to produce these waves of great length. At other moments, at sunrise and sunset, the waves of small length are preferable, and the region of the earth’s atmosphere between light and darkness is the seat of phenomena—doubtless electric• which interfere greatly with communications made across this zone. No satisfactory explanation of these singular facts is yet forthcoming.’