Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 44, 18 November 1925, Page 62

Science Siftings

(Br Vow)

a. » Star-Gazers’ G.H.Q. The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park will shortly be celebrated. It was not founded for astronomical work in the usual sense of that term, but for the practical business of enabling seamen to have correct tables for the purpose of finding their longitude or angular distances east or west from a standard meridian (as that of Greenwich) to the meridian of any place, reckoned _to 180 degrees East or West. In 1675 a French scientist devised tables based on the movement of the moon, but King Charles II decided that English seamen should have their own tables, and John Flamsteed was appointed Astronomer Royal at £IOO a year. Sir Christopher Wren proposed Greenwich Castle as a suitable site for the observatory. The foundation stone was laid on August 10, 1675, and the building was first occupied by Flamsteed on July 10, 1676. Balneology. What in the world is that? you ask. It must be something remote and abstruse, something only the very learned can understand. So I thought when I read that at a medical congress the doctors there assembled had been discussing balneology. But it turns out that this is simply a. long an learned name for bathing (says a writer in Tit-Bits, London). So when next you take your header at your favorite seaside resort you will be able to flatter yourself that you are a balneologist. The doctors laid down certain rules for bathingyou shouldn’t go into the water after a meal or when you are tired, and if it is cold you shouldn’t stay in too long. We seem to have heard that before, somehow. We are told that doctors are not very good at taking their own medicine. Perhaps, ignoring their precepts about “ the therapeutic value of balneology,” they went and played golf instead. Freak Lighting. In parts of the United States curious examples of “freak” lighting are to ho found. Some of these are illustrated by Mr. A. L. Spring in a. recent issue of the Electrical World. Sierra. Madre, a little city in California, has a beautiful setting of oak trees, and it was felt that, amongst these ordinary lamp posts would be unsightly. The designers solved the problem by lighting standards shaped like rustic oak, each carrying a lighting unit in the form of an acorn! At Altadena, California, “Christmas Trees Avenue,” lined with beautiful cedar trees, receives special illumination at the festive season. From December 20 to New Year’s Eve each year every other tree is decorated from top to bottom with colored lamps. Perhaps, however, the most singular form of public lighting mentioned was that adopted by an enterprising tract owner who installed lights immediately over the kerb, with protecting concrete arches over them.

This form of lighting would doubtless harmonise with the views of those people who argue that public lamps are too high. Benzene’s Birth. A hundred years ago Michael Faraday discovered benzene. Of all his discoveries* scientists consider that of benzene to be the most important. The centenary was recently celebrated. At the time of Faraday’s discovery, gas was compressed into iron cylinders and supplied in the same way as oxygen is to-day. With the natural curiosity of a scientist, Faraday examined the gas and so discovered benzene —a substance composed of six parts carbon and six parts hydrogen. The actual form of joinery between the carbon and the hydrogen opened up a. new field of thought for the chemist. Benzene should be pictured as a hexagon formed of carbon with an atom of hydrogen at each of the six points. The substitution of other properties in the place of one or more of the hydrogen atoms has been the basis for much experimenting. The possibilities contingent upon this study of compounds are immense. A thousand different substances, including every variety of dye and a large number of drugs, have bad their origin in benzene. The vast number of derivative discoveries, and the consequent widespread influence of benzene, is typical of the discoverer.