SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 154, 29 June 1907, Page 10

SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

IDENTICAL FINGER-PRINTS. A very serious question is raised by the curious circumstance discovered in connection with two men who are now awaiting their trial on criminal charges in different parts of South Africa. The fingerprints of both have been found, it is said, to be absolutely identical. That this was possible has, of course, always been known, but it was supposed that the odds against the occurrence was so many millions to one that it would never be a practical question. The coincidence, if properly established, obviously affects the whole question of identification by fingerprints, and makes the anthropometric system more than ever the only secure one. *** THE END OF THE EARL'S COURT WHEEL. The great wheel at Earl's Court is now no more. The whole of the huge thing was demolished in six months. It was 300 feet in diameter, and weighed, with its cars, 1000 tons. The two standards on which it was mounted weighed 400 tons more. Considering that, in taking it to pieces, every rivet had to be sawn through, as every nut was completely set in rust, the despatch with which the work was done was very creditahte to those concerned. ANTARCTIC ICE BARRIER, The unique floating ice barrier pushed out from the mysterious Antarctic land was found by Captain' Scott's expedition to extend 500 miles westward frbiri the volcanoes Erebus and Terror, and more than 400 miles toward the Pole, reaching beyond 82 degrees 17 minutes south latitude. The front rises 10 to 280 feet above the water. ABOUT WAVES. Waves are deceptive things. To look at them one would gather the impression that the whole water travelled. This, however, is not so. The water stays in the same place, but the motion goes on. In great storms waves are 40ft.' high, and/ their crests travel 50 miles an hour. The base of the wave (the distance from valley to valley) is usually considered .as being fifteen times the height of the wave. Therefore a wave 25ft. high would have a base extending 375 feet. The force qf waves breaking on the shore is seventeen tons to- the square inch. A NOVEL UMBRELLA. A Vienna architect has invented a new kind of umbrella which does not require to be held up by hand. It consists of a sort of roof shelter made of silk or stuff, which, by means of two thin rods and a band across the chest can be supported on the shoulders. For architects, engineers, artists and others - who are obliged to work in the rain, the new invention is declared to be. very practicable. It also should be useful to persons loaded down with parcels. When not in use the roof umbrella can be folded into a very small compass. LARGE v. SMALL BALLOONS. . The Aero Club of France has carried out an experiment intended to help the club committee in its inquiry into the relative values of large and- small balloons. Two - spherical-balloons, one having a capacity of T46,600c.ft. and,the other about 14,000 ft., wete set free at St. Cloud the other Saturday evening. Ii the car of the large balloon there were ten passengers, among them M. Santos Dumont, M. Leblanc, M. de St. Victor. In the car of the Small balloon M. Geo. Bans, the secretary of the Aero Club, was the only traveller. The Micromegas, as the small balloon was named, came to land in the department of the Vienne at half-past seven on Sunday morning. The- giant balloon, l'Algle, which, by the way, is the largest balloon in France, landed at Blois about ten o'clock on Sunday morning, having covered only half the distance traversed by the Microniegas — a hundred miles against two hundred miles. FORTUNES AWAITING CLEVER PEOPLE. It is not necessary for the man of really inventive genius to look far afield in order to find ample scope for his talents and thus to attain wealth and fame. .Our unsatisfied wants are so numerous that none of us passes a single day without i feeling them. It is, for example, proverbial that there is nothing like leather; and as far as boots and shoes are concerned, this is as true as ever, notwithstanding all the eompo and like trash often fraudulently substituted for it. No I really satisfactory substitute for leather has yet,been nianufactured; and in view ' -of the continually increasing demand the -genius who discovers such will undoubtedly reap his due reward.

India-rubber and gutta-percha are other important commodities for which no really effective substitutes have yet been discovered. There are, of course, numerous substitutes of a sort, but no artificial product has so far been found capable of replacing the one in pneumatic tyres, for example, or the other in golf balls or submarine cables. The are but a few illustrations of long-felt wants still unsatisfied, and of fortunes awaiting lucky inventors as yet unrealised. IS THE EARTH PLUNGING THROUGH A DUST CLOUD? Growing in favour seems to be the theory that a ring or ellipse of tiny fragments of solid matter extends out* j wards from near the sun in a, plane ! nearly corresponding to that of the earth's orbit and reaching beyond the orbit of our planet. Varied evidence suggests that the earth is plunging through such a ring or dust cloud. The bright Zodiacal Light may be the reflection of sunlight from an enormous number of such particles in the direction of the sun, the scarcely-detected Gegenschein —or weird midnight glow opposite the sun:—may be the reflection from particles beyond the earth, and the faint Z'odjiacal Band extending around the heavens between these two glows may represent the lighting of the dust-cloud as its density lessens with increase of the angle from the- sun. These fragments are being constantly dTawn to the earth—a very few falling as stones of weights ranging up to hundreds and even several thousands of pounds, though most of them are particles of only a few grains in size. Mr. W. F. Denning estimates that more than 100 meteor showers occur every night, those of the day-time being unseen; and another estimate is that from 100 to 200 tons of meteoric matter must be captured daily, representing perhaps hundreds of millions of individual meteorsi Professor Nicholson has calculated that the particles in the earth's path large enough to become visible as shooting stars, must average about 250 miles apart—a density sufficient to give the Zodiacal Light and similar phenomena. .—"Science Sittings."