Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 22 January 1914, Page 47

Science Siftings

By ‘ Volt.’

Photographing Wireless Messages. Photographing wireless messages has become a possibility by the aid of a powerful light thrown on the vibrations of a wire which is finer than a human hair. Wireless messages can be transferred to a sensitive film passing through a machine like the narrow strip of paper in a ticker machine, and a photographic presentment of the message results. Signor Marconi has been working on this development for several years. Recently his instrument was put to a test and its practical value demonstrated.. An Eiffel Tower for Buenos Aires. Application has been made to the municipality of Buenos Aires for a sixty-year concession to erect on city property the Torre Rivadavia ’ —a tower similar to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It is to be 1067 feet high, topped by a 106-foot statue, bearing a light of 1,000,000 candle power, making a total height of 1173 feet. The tower is to be of steel construction, and to have facilities for social gatherings, cafes, restaurants, library, billiard rooms, gymnasium, as well as a wireless telegraphic station, and a meteorological observatory. It is also - contemplated to instal an immense electric clock. A New Paper-making Process. A new paper-making process described to the Paris Academy of Sciences has suggested new possibilities for the French colonies. Paper is made by felting cellulose, the elastic envelope of vegetable cells, and the new process is claimed to clean and make available much cellulose cheaper than that of wood. The plants include bamboo, alfalfa, poppy, sorghum, rice, maize, and seaweeds. Most promising of all is the banana, which, on an equal area yields 133 times as much material as wheat, and is estimated to supply two tons of excellent pulp per acre every ten months, while the product of a pine forest, cut every sixty years, is only half a ton of pulp per acre annually. Marvellous Record. The wireless telegraphy apparatus usually installed in merchant vessels is capable of generating waves varying from 300 to 600 metres in length. This gives a range of operation of from 100 to 300 miles but the big Atlantic liners, which are fitted with more powerful appliances, can send signals through a much longer distance. Warships, for obvious reasons, also usually have installations giving them a -wide area of transmission. Land stations, like the great Marconi wireless stations at Poldhp, or the" French Government’s station on the summit of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, have apparatus capable of generating immensely long waves, and can send messages across the Atlantic. The Eiffel Tower has sent out on occasion signals which have been picked up at stations in Brazil, more than 6000 miles away. ■ ’ A Substitute for Ivory. About fifty years ago some rubber gatherers in . the forests of Northern Ecuador reported a peculiar species of palm,' which they found in great numbers, whose fruit was a nut resembling in form and color a , miniature head of a negro. These nuts are nick-named ‘ negritos.’ The kernels of the nuts, when thoroughly dried, had the appearance and texture of dentine, ivory. Sample lots of these.nuts were shipped to Europe for experimental purposes, and it was soon found that they furnished an ideal material from which to manufacture buttons and other small ornamental objects, for which ; the more expensive ivory had hitherto been used (says Commercial Intelligence'). The ivory nut is now an important article of commerce.. Over 20,000 tons are p? shipped?'from*. Ecuador alone every year, bringing : a | return. of about £340,000. *