Science.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 376, 23 July 1903, Page 2

Science.

AUTOMATIC TELEGRAPHY. all the problems which e>|s© engage the attention of inventors Jjgjik there seems to be none more attractive than that of combining telegraphy and type writer in such manner as to produce a high-speed instrument saving time and labor at the wire. Automatic Benders and receivers of one kind or another aire submitted to the Western Union at the rats of about one a week and rejected at the same rate.

There is a fortune in store for the man who can invent a high-speed sending and automatic receiving instrument, says the 'New York San,' but there is one tremendous obstacle in the way of inventors who attempt it. That obstacle is the limit to the capacity of the operator of the type writer. It is comparatively easy to invent a combination of type writing machine and telegraph instrument in which the operator, when he pounds the keyboard at one end of the wire, records, after the manner of the stock ticker, line by line on ordinary paper at the other end of the wire the words he frames at his end The trouble is that he cannot do it fast enough. The operator who in practic can type write 100 words a minute has yet to be found. The speed at which the wire can carry the message is almost limitless. At present it is limited only by the capacity of the operators, sender and receiver, and speed, even more than labor saving is the thing the telegraph csmpanies are seeking. For the last three years the Western Union has been experimenting on two circuits between Kew York and Chicago and New York and Buffalo with an automatic system called the Buckingham. This ib not Btrictly a combination of telegraph and type writer. The type writer is a perforatiag instrument which punches holes in sheets of paper which are fed into the Bending instrument and are Bent and received automatically. this system from 50 to 60 messages of an average of 30 words each can be sent an hour. The trouble about this is that two or three men are required to prepare the messages. Tuere is an instrument already invented and now being perfected and developed for commercial use which may be brought into practical use. before automatic telegraphy comes, to pass. This is the Poulson telephonograph, invested by a Dd,ae.

In this instrument words spoken into a phonograph combined with a telephone are reproduced on patent tape at the other end of the wire. Should this be developed cheaply and universally it may revolutionise telegraphy.

THE AIESHIP PROBLEM

Professor Alexander Graham Bell, the famous New York electrician, claims to have made an important discovery which may help to solva the problem of aerial navigation. Dr. Bell opposes airships of the balloon type like M. Santos Damont's, on the gronnd that any mechanical body lighter than air is bound to be at the mercy of the wind, and is therefore impracticable. Birds, which are heavier than air, have perfect freedom. Dr. 801 l bas not built a flying machine, or attempted to do bo, but he has been working on the problem and experimenting, and has reached the conclusion that the airship must resemble a kite. In the course of his recent experiments he constructed a kite or aacoplane carrying a weight equivalent to that of a man, and an engine which, when cuS loose, descended gently and steadily and landed uninjured. He does not care at present, however, to make public the details of the constiuation. Professor Bull has been working at the problem for several years with Ptofessor Langloy, of Washington, who is a strong advocate of the ceroplane. He will continue his investigations during the winter and will resume outdoor experiments in the sprißg, and may eventually produce the first practical flying machine. Professor Myers, of Ufcica, whose airship will compete at the St. Louis exposition, announces the complet'on of an electric aerial torpedo, which flies like a bird. It is driven by screws making 2000 revolutions a minute, while.£Bcoplanes acting as rudders move tho vessel in any direction. Mr. Myers assests that the vessel can be electrically controlled item a distance.

A BEEATH IMIGE. Take a piece of cardboard and with a sharp penknife cut some kind of figure. When it is cut out lay the cardboard from whish you cut the "figure upon a W9ll cleaned piece of glass and breathe on it. Leave the cardboard resting on the glass until the breath first blowD on it i?as evaporated. Then carefully lift the card-, board and breathe again over the place where the fi i,ure lay and you will see the image appear on the glass. When the breath is blown oa the second time it covers, besides the figure, a portion of the glass, but tha spot where the figure is has a greater density than the Burrounding portion.