Science and Invention.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 447, 10 November 1904, Page 7

Science and Invention.

A NOVEL BRIDLE. A RECENT invention with novel features is a water bridle for a horse. A rubber reservoir is provided covering the horse's head and attached to the bridle. This is to bo filled with water, the idea being to keep the horse's head cool in summer and to replace the unsightly strawbonnet with a sponge in it, so much used m the hot months. The new alloy, magnalium, is being used largely in the manufacture of scientific instruments, on account of its low specific gravity. An alloy containing 8G per cent, aluminium and 12 per cent, magnesium is about 2.5 specific gravity.

TERMITARIUJrtS

Thero wcro recently received at the New York National Museum two termitariums from Jamaica, whbh are regarded as the greatest curiosities which have been placed in tho institution for a number of years. Tho termitarium is residonce of a tribe of termites, or white ants. One of these specimens was at once shipped to St. Louis, where it will form a part of one of the Government exhibits at tho exposition. The other was placed on view in the museum. The larger of the two nests received by the museum is about 4ft. long and 2ft. in diameter, being shaped a great deal like an elongated double peanut, round and oval at the ends, and with a narrower portion in the centre.

ELECTRICAL BAIT,

An electrical bait for fishermen has been invented by a Baltimore man, who claims that it may be made in the shapo of a minnow, craw-fish, fly, or any other body, in the interior of which is mounted an electro-magnet, and having movable parts, such as fins and tail, and having armatures for the electro-magnets connected therewith. By means of a small dry battery fastened to the rod or carried in the pocket of the fi«herman, and a convenient touchbutton, with the necessary wire connection between them, it is possible to send a current through the parts as desired, when tho tails and fins of the mimic fish will be agitated so rapidly and life-like that no member of the finny tribe could think for a second of questioning its genuineness. This deceptive construction can be made of metal, although the inventor is of opinion that rubber would bo preferable for the purpose.

A NEW FOG SIGNAL.

At Snow Hill Station, Birmingham,"a new fog-signalling apparatus, the invention of Mr Ledbrook, the chief inspector of signals for the Midland section of the Great Western Railway Co., was recently tested. The device, which is termed the 'Automatic Belt Auxiliary Railway Signal,' is fixed to the inside of one of the rails. When the signal is at danger the mechanism is ready for operation. The flange of the engine wheel cleaves the contrivance, which operates a lever, causing two hammers fixed alongside the line to strike a bell simultaneously. When the signal is clear the alarm drops, and the engine wheel makes no contact. When the bell has been ringing a pneumatic cylinder gradually sets the apparatus again, ready for the next train. During the last quarter of a century 1,200 sets of apparatus for fog signalling have been tested by the railway companies, but none have satisfied them. All who watched the test spoke highly of Mr Ledbrook's invention.

A NEW METAL—NODIUJffI.

Tho United States Consul-General Glenther sends from Frankfort, Germany, the following: A new metal which is similar to aluminium, but still of lesser weight, has been discovered by the French engineer, Albert Noden, and called ' Nodium,' after him, It is manufactured by an electric process. In colour, lustre, and structure it is almost exactly like steel. Its specific weight when molten is only 2A. Its resistance against breaking is given as about 201b. per square of 0-04 in. Its constancy in the air is higher than that of aluminium. Its ductility is between 6in. to Bin.; the malleability can be compared to that of bronze. It melts at about GOO deg. It is suitable for being cast into forms. The conductibility for the electric current is as high as that of copper of equal weight. If natural power, especially waterpower, can be used for its manufacture, the cost in round figures is about 15 cents per pound. The inventor expects numerous uses of nodium in the near future, especially for electric wires and cables, for light strong parts of motor-cars, torpedo-boats, men-of-war, street-cars', military outfits, air-ships, etc., and for castings in place of bronze, German silver, and similar metals. Nothing definite has yet been communicated as to the chemical composition of nodium nor as to the mode of its manufacture.

THE FAILURE TO FLY.

Lord Rayleigh once said that when he was asked whether flying-machines would ever be made, he usually replied by asking, ' What do you mean by flight ?' A football is, temporarily, a flying-machine, and can be directed against the wind better than a balloon; while a balloon has the desirable characteristic, which a football has not, of being able to stop up in the air for some considerable time. We shall probably find that most people mean by a • flying-machine ' an apparatus that can go up and down at will, and that can bo directed while it is up. If we add to this the provisions that its direction must be determined from within itself, we shall arrive at a fair definition of a flyingmachine. We may also arrive at the conclusion that the only flying-machines which have ever fulfilled all these conditions in a quite satisfactory way are the birds. In entirely different and almost in opposed ways, M. Santos Dumont on the one hand, and the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright on the other, have solved half the problem. M. Santos Dumont has succeeded in driving a balloon through tho air by means of aerial screws. It is not easy to pin aeronauts down to an exact statement of the speed at which they may be supposed to have travelled ; but we shall not be diminishing the extent of the success of the navigable balloon if we say that M. Santos Dumont's best results have given him a speed of twenty miles an hour independently of the speed of the wind. That is to say, in a dead calm his airship could travel twenty miles an hour; it could not stem a wind of greater velocity than twenty miles an hour. Count Zeppelin's best results with the enormous cigar-shaped cylinder—42oft. long, 37ft in diameter, equipped with two 15h.p. Daimler motors—with which he experimented over Lake Constance, were estimated at eighteen miles an hour < independent ' speed. Count Zeppelin's balloon, however, made very few trips. Minor accidents had a continual knacky of intervening ; and accidents of a minor";- and, unhappily, often of a disastrous kind, have continually been associated with-.nearly every other inventor and navigator of airships. M. Santos Dumont alone can- claim I to have had anything approaching a eonI tinuous success.