NEWS BY MAIL

Hokitika Guardian, 25 October 1924, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL

MILLIONS IN STEEL VAULT. LONDON, Aug. 7,

Every night ;il (! o’clock huge metal doors in a concrete and steel-lined

building in the C'ity of London shut with a clang and remain immovable for 15 hours: IMiind them, in 15,000 safes and stroiig-roollls, lie securities, deeds, and “ liquid ” assets to the estimated value of millions. They are the stronghold doors of the Chancery-lane Safe Deposit, and in case their two tons of solid steel and their two time-locks, in addition to tiie ordinary means of fastening, are .not siiflicieiit to keep tho treasures they guard safe against invasion, armed guards patrol the building throughout the night.

The grimly husiness-like vaults are the meeting-place of all sorts and conditions of men and women; burglars and millionaires have used them—anybody with a treasure to guard or a secret to hide. There is the “diamond queue” of merchants from Hatton Oarden, who prefer to place their stock in the vaults every night than to trust it to a safe in their unguarded oflices. Millionaires deposit their artistic and bibliographic treasures in the strong rooms. One paid CUOOO for n special

door with two combination locks to be lilted to the room he rented. WOMEN'S Tli EASE I! E-HOUSE.

Lawyers keep their most important documents ill the sales, and women store their jewels there and come and gloat over them, week by week. And there is romance, too. Kor thirty years one man rented a small sale, for which he paid L'li .Is a year, for the sole purpose of keeping his “lucky penny” beyond all chance of

••I do not know what virtue was in that penny”, said the secretary of the Safe Deposit, “hut I do know that when our renter first, came he was in very humble circumstances, but when he died he was worth well over t-’ltlO,-0()[), and his heirs took the penny away.” Occasionally renters leave their sales for many years, and in course of lime the oflieiais open the receptacles and sometimes stumble on hidden secrets. There is a bundle of letters taken from a safe rented long ago by a woman who disappeared—what mystery, what romance. would those letters reveal to one who held the key!

AEKOI’LANE CATAI’ULIf'. •\ new tvpe of aeroplane catapult in Which a powder charge is used for giving the 'plane its initial start, instead ofoompressed air. has recently k"c" tested by the United States Navy with satisfactory results. ]n the new type, the catapult gun contains a piston which is connected through a series of multiple purchases of pulleys, to a small wheeled car. Ihe car. on which the aeroplane is placed, muds on tracks which are -it) loci long, and are secured to a platform located op the top ot a battleship turret. When the powder charge is tired in the ..mi, the piston, being forced to revive, acts through the pulleys, thus pulling the car suddenly forward along the tracks at a speed of 00 miles per linin', carrying the 'plane with it. When tin 1 car reaches the. end of the track, it is stopped by means ol hydraulic acid spring hullers. Ihe phone. with its engine going at lull speed, is automatically released from the car. and hr its own power. Hi the test made at the Naval Air Station., a single-seater scouting monoplane of the 1 hydroplane type was used. 'I he plane left the catapult car and continued its (light without any drop in altitude below |he level of the tracks, which is unusual. This fact was particularly pleasing lo the ollicials. since heretofore it has been necessary to have the tracks at such a height above the water that catapults were impracticable for several types of ships oil which it was desired to have them installed. Ihe principal advantages of the gun type catapult’ over the compressed air type lies in the speed and facility with which a number cef planes may in* catapulted from a *|>l«iim■ rjiiTH'i. I H"iiiU rumpH'^'t i . it i- necessary to rec harge i lie air tanks after each shot, w hi. h lakes considerable time. I’-y the use of the gun type, the* enormous, space* and weight of the air-cumprcPsing machinery wilf lie obviated. All aeroplane carrims and other type's of -hips carrying aeroplanes, will la* equipped with the* gnu-type catapult as soon as the Navy can hu i 1 1 1 aml iustall 1 hem.

TAI.-KINC ATLANTIC. Talking across tho Atlantic by radio Idcpli illy has been an accomplished fact, 'c: nearly ton years possible, tint altogether too expensive for genera! use". .1 u.st now it is still in the experimental stage*, hut then* are hopes. Already i in I i o engineers working in cooperation under the direction ol tho Americ an Telephone and 'I elegrapli ( 0.. the lLidio Corporation of America, and the* Western Electric Co., have succeeded in devising a method which saves two-thirds of tin* power required. "When the ciunniurs quantities of lcigh-lre-qucney power required for Irans-ocean-ie telephony are considered, it is obvious how much the saving may mean

towards making such conversations commercially practicable. In the ordinary telegraphic transmission three hands of electric waves are transmitted through the ether. These experimenters, according to an announcement to he made by the Engineering Foundation, have evolved a method requiring only one band, tvliich makes all the power radiated effective in transmitting Hie message, while by the ordinary method most of this power is not thus effective. Wave-length space iii the ether also is conserved, and tlu* transmitting antenna problem simplified. Conservation of frequency range is most important when it is realised that the total range available is distinctly limited. The upper limit for radio telephony may he 00.000 cycles a second. ]ie!o\v .'IO.OOO cycles the range is preempted by transoceanic telegraphy.