SCIENCE NOTES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8343, 1 February 1913, Page 9

SCIENCE NOTES

“While bright-eyed Science watches round."

The most notable scientific advances of late years have from laboratories equipped on anything but a lavish scale. Argon was discovered in the private laboratory of Lord Rayleigh, cathode particles were weighed in the Cavendish laboratory, and radium was discovered in the Paris Municipal School of Physics and Chemistry. It may, moreover, bo pointed out that Lord Rayleigh’s work is reckoned amongst that small fraction ol the scientific output of the world to which common consent accords the honour of being precise to one decimal' place more than is customary. In this connection reference may also be made to an address delivered last January by Professor Emil Fischer, who attributed the small part played by Germany in radioactive research to the costliness of radium. The work of Rutherford and Soddy with thorium, however, proves conclusively that the true cause was not that the material was wanting, hut the man. Reference may also be made here to Quinche’s classical researches on surface tension, which were carried out with apparatus which was almost rudimentary. When the Institution of Electrical Engineers visited Weber’s laboratory in Switzerland a few years ago, the members were struck by the extraordinarily complete scale of equipment ; but the remark was passed that a student accustomed to work there would prove nearly useless if called upon to’ make shift with the meagre, though sufficient, apparatus to be found in a laboratory attached to a works or manufactory.

It may be added (says “Engineering”) that one of our loading authorities on wireless telegraphy, after expatiating with longing on the magnificent equipment provided > for experiment on this subject-in certain German institutions, confessed, when pressed, that in actual fact, when all was said and done, work of more fundamental importance was being successfully carried out here in laboratories where it was often necessary to improvise apparatus. Of course, it may be claimed that time is lost in preparatory work of this kind which might ho saved for the main research were the equipment more complete. This view sounds plausible at first sight, but anyone who has operated in these conditions will, we think, agree that time thus spent is very far indeed from being wasted. Whilst making the preliminary arrangements, the investigator’s mind is “intended” on hs subject, to the great .benefit of the final investigation. If, as we believe, a very lavish equipment is rather a drawback than an aid to scientific researches of fundamental importance, this is still more the case with mechanical engineering laboratories.

Herr Carl Mussheck, of Munich, has just patented an appliance by means of which he means to empower the art galleries of the world, as well as the American millionaire collectors, to ensure their treasured oil paintings for all time against the smoke of Pittsburg, the fogs of London, or the heating apparatus of St. Petersburg. The idea is nothing less than to protect the paint from harm by enclosing it in a chamber filled with either chemically purified air or some gas that is totally without deleterious action on the paint. Naturally, the chamber is to have a glass front, and this front is to allow the owners of the pictures or the visitors to the galleries to see what is behind, hut the Lady Hamiltons of Lawrence, the Bismarcks of Lenbach, the Doges of Titian, and all the statesmen and men of letters painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds are to breathe other air than their admirers, air that perhaps would have poisoned them when living, but which will preserve their colour now. The reasons in favour of this 'idea are sound enough when one considers the ravages made in recent years by the sulphurous smoke of some of the larger towns on the old masters within their walls. Only recently it was reported in Berlin that an expert had been able to lay down the geographical limits of the intensities of the danger, and tha-t in Berlin the demarcation was as plainly as possible parallel to the coal-burning overhead railway line.

Hitherto pictures have been partially protected by glass. This measure, however, was more against the knifethrusts of the maniacs and the exuberances of the' art students, who often used to collaborate with the great masters when copying and attempting to get exactly the right tone —pushing their brush against the original in their eagerness —than against the subtler and more irredeemable damage of the bad air. Not long ago an attempt was made to .solve the problem by sealing the glass and the canvas together and pumping out the air, leaving the picture under a vacuum. There were a hundred dangers and difficulties, here, however. The glass had to be abnormally thick, and this meant a- considerable difference to the colours as seen through it, as well as great cost, and the vacuum also was not adapted to the pictures that with the course of time had begun* to flake. Then, again, it could only be used when the canvasses received a special backing to render them impervious to the pressing air .behind. Almost all these difficulties and disadvantages, Herr Mussbeck claims, are avoided by his invention, which allows glass of normal thickness, and is no more danger to pictures that are scaling than it is to others that have just left the easel. What the gas is that Herr Mussbeck intends to use in order to prevent the old masters from becoming irretrievable ruins is not stated, though one may be assured that neither sulphur nor chlorine enters into its composition.