SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, 8 May 1919, Page 46

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

By "Volt."

New Wireless Wonder. ; vThe well-known wireless expert, Dr. Lee de Forest, .•■ who arrived in England recently to exhibit his latest ■' invention to the British Signal Corps, disclosed some., '". interesting facts concerning the Audion Lamp. By !';! means of this invention long-distance wireless tele- ;.; graphy and telephony have been made possible. The /: Audion Lamp magnifies sound waves a million times, " ■_'■■% but without affecting their tonal qualities. .''■•"*. "All the U.S. airplanes," says Dr. de Forest, . 1 ; . "are now fitted with this apparatus, which has made -;s>s it possible for the pilot to receive a message in the . ~ air despite the noise of his engine. Our Signal Corps, ;;•> too, in the trenches are using the same apparatus, of a more portable kind, and they have an effective range •■'>*..■§ of from four to five miles. "The Allies' communication at the front between aeroplanes, infantry, and artillery would be impossible f in anything like its present state of perfection without the Audion. The French use a thousand a day." Edison Camouflaged Ship. How Edison, the famous American, invented one „.>. of the earliest and most successful systems of "camouflaging" merchant vessels, has just .been revealed by one who assisted in the experiments. In those, days : ": before the convoy system had been so largely developed and when merchant ships had to rely so much for safety upon their own unaided efforts, scientists of all coun- 7 tries were devoting much time to the question of the reduction of visibility at sea.. Amongst them was Thomas Alva Edison, the American inventor. To aid him in his work the Cunard Company placed at his disposal, for experimental purposes, the Valeria, a 10,000-ton carrying freight steamer. Edison got quickly ' to work and, before long, the result was seen in the Mersey, where an incoming vessel —squat, dumpy, barge-like—excited general wonder. It was the "camouflaged." Valeria. Her funnels had almost disappeared, and her masts were cut right- down; portions of her superstructure > had been removed or concealed ; and finally, immense painted screens of canvas were ranged along the ship and "wrapped" around her top sides. She looked like nothing else on earth:or at sea. She was almost in- !l visible at a short distance and quite unrecognisable. It was the crew of the Valeria that had the thrill of feeling a shock in the vessel's bottom and the subsequent pleasure of seeing a German submarine emerge with a broken periscope. The distance separating the two vessels was so small that the Valeria's guns had to be depressed to their fullest extent in order to fire. They did not miss,