SCIENCE NOTES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8355, 15 February 1913, Page 9

SCIENCE NOTES

"■While bright-eyed Science watches round." Sir James Dewar, in a recent lecture at the Royal Institution, tiad some wonderful things to say about the atom. A few years ago the atom was thought to bo the smallest partic.e into which an element could be divided. If the head of a pin were magnified to the size of the world, we were told, its atoms would even then be no bigger than cricket balls. Since then the electron has been located an atom is now a kind of solar system, composed of a central sun aronnd 'which p.anets and satellites are ceaselessly revolving. These constituents of -the atom are the electrons of modern physical science, and Professor Brashear, of Lehigh (U.S.A.) University, recently attempted to illustrate their inconceivable smallness. If you fill a ve . r y small thimble with electrons he said, you will have so many of them that, allowing them to run out at the rate of 1000 a second, It will take seventeen quintillions of years to exhaust a cubic centimetre of the thimble. \ In the course of excavations for new sewerage works at Bedford (England) recently a human skull of dolichocephalie form was found in clay at a depth of 12ft 6in in a meadow, and only a few yards from the Ouse. An expert from Cambridge considers that the skull is neolithic. With it was found a skull which is thought to be that of a wolf, or possibly a large dog. At the Dundee meeting of the British Association in September last, the general committee passed on to the Council for consideration a resolution deploring the rapid destruction of fauna and flora throughout the world, and suggesting that steps should be taken by the formation of suitablyplaced reserves, or otherwise, to secure the preservation of examples, of all species of animals and plants, irrespective of their economic or sporting value, except in cases where it has been clearly proved that the preservation of particular organisms, even in restricted numbers and places, is a menace to human welfare. The formation of a society for the promotion of Nature reserves has now been effected. Coke is made in nature as well as in brick ovens. When hot volcanic material comes into contact with a coalbed, under the proper conditions, it makes very good coke indeed, although not in sufficiently laige deposits to he commercially valuable. Such natural coke is also found by the geologist or the prospector. Graphite is also manufactured out of coal, by volcanic heating, and in this case the product is commercially important. Graphite is nearly pure carbon. In geologic examinations of the deposits of the Raton coalfields in New Mexico, the geological expert found some excellent examples where coal had been metamorphosed into graphite by comparatively recent intrusions of hot volcanic rock, the combustion of the coal being prevented by the absence of air. Man is now manufacturing graphite as .well as coke out of coal. What is known in Japan as “Inada no goko,” or halo in the ricetield, is discussed by Professors Fuchino and Izu, of the College of Agriculture and Forestry, Kagoshima, in the Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan. In the early morning, when the dew lies on the plants, and the sun is shining, the shadow of the head of a person standing in the fields is surrounded by a luminous halo, elliptic in form, its long axis corresponding with that of the body-shadow. As the sun rises higher in the sky, and the dew evaporates, the halo vanishes, but reappears on sprinkling the ground with water. The authors describe some experiments which they earned out with blankets, isolated drops of water, and bottles. They conclude from their experiments that the phenomenon of the halo is caused by the rebooted light from the sun-images formed on the green blades by the passage of tee sun’s rays obliquely through the dewdrops. Tho\“Kew Bulletin” gives an account of E-cdychium coronarium, Koen., and allies, as a source of material for paper-making. The plant, a member of the natural order Zmgiberaceae, is a native of India, being distributed from the Himalayas to Ceylon and Malacca. It is also found in the West Indies, New Zealand, and elsewhere, and it covers large tracts ot swamps in Brazil. Experiments have been made with specimens sent from San Paulo, and papers of exceptional tensile strength, exceeding that ot Manila paper, have been produced from the fibre. Owing to a semi-gelatinous constituent, the new paper is said to be practically “natural parchment.” Samples of the paper and fibre have been placed in the Museum of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Besides possessing self-sizing qualities, the fibre is capable of being worked very quickly on the paper-making machine. Another plant, Amomum hemisphericum, for br”wn paper-making, is also described. Aeroplane flights to the North Pole in four hours are foretold by Captain Robert Bartlett, of the Peary North Pole expedition. “The safest and easiest way to reach the pole, and an entirely feasible way, Is by aeroplane,” he said in an address to the Aero Club of New England, U.S.A. “An aeroplane station. could be set up at Cape Morris K. Jessup, which is 381 miles from the pole. With the latest machines this would mean a flight of only four hours. The ice would provide suitable landing-places all along the route, but full supplies would have to be carried, of course.” Potash from felspar is a problem which has been solved, according to news from Copenhagen, by a Swedish engineer named Lindblad. He has made potash by melting potash felspar together with coal and iron In an electric furnace. There are great quantities of potash felspar in Sweden’s rocks.