A NEW TELEPHONE INVENTION.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 47, 18 June 1915, Page 7

A NEW TELEPHONE INVENTION.

The number of epoch-making inventions of any kind is not now as great as it used to be. There must be a levelling down or up of the standard of gu-at minds; besides, the commercial man dare not encourage inventors too much, otherwise their ingenuity would put. him clean out of business. Lord Rayleigh, however, recently introduced to the Royal Society a device which ranks rather among the discoveries than the inventions. Tho investigator who has achieved this success is a M. de Lange, and the name given to his device is the thermophone. Its principle is based on the property of platinum wire becoming heating and cooling will be. in a. way, in strength of an electric current flowing through them. When these current variations are produced by the human voice or any vibratory instrument, the heating an dcooling will be, in a way. a, measure of the sound variations corresponding to the words spoken or the note struck. The platinum wire can then be said to "speak" or reproduce the sounds which occasioned the current variations in the telephone circuit. M. de Lange has succeeded in constructing extremely fine "cobwebs of platinum, which, when enclosed in a box no larger in diameter than ordinary telephone circuit, will produce word sound-* such as the ordinary electro-magnetic receiver is quite incapable of domy.— "The Ironmonger."

FARMING IN SIUKRIA

Wo haw inherited from the tradition.-, i o[ the past the idea that Sib-mi is a , country with a not very irnittul soil, i Yet in the ln»t few year, very dec-idea I advalues in fanning have been made: there, a, 11 re-Ilk of the efforts of the; Russian (.oveinnieut to arouse the n.«tivc p -a-.ints and settlers to a more mti'iiaiye cultivation oi the ground. >». , the western section ol the coiinti), so the (iennaii journal " Prometheus" tc-.hs ijs iargo associations oi iarni rs li:i\i* j be'on organised for the export of thou, products. 11l l'.ll-J butter to the vaiue j i,l 7,11D11.DU0 roubles (a rouble is about -,| c' ( .nt-) was export• d. 11l H»l3 tins ! all.omit had doubled, for ill till- yeltrj l,;ut, r to the value of 11 <HKJ rouble. , V, is -old til Germany. Austna-llungni >. j and Kngland. In I'.' 1 experiments ueiv made in the manufacture ot r.nglis.i ( h 'ddar eiieese. Alter several failuretill- cheese, which is very popular m (ireat Britain, "as so tated that, in l'.Hli Kngland imported <>» tons of Siberian Cheddar. 'I hetradiM- ; cai i'ii'd oil hy ship* duvctly troui 11,4 : interior of Siberia to London. j DON'!'".. "|i i., impossible to 'do a Vmk>' boasted an American the other day, a-I he guessed li ' would come oft be.st in ; miv business transaction _ j " Well," said an Irishman, muet.y, : " I'll sell von for a penny something tor which 1 paid twopence, and yet inline J; penny profit over tile transaction . • The Ancriean agreed and handed over the penny, whereupon Pat pre-ent-. iml him with a twopenny tram ticket. ] " (,i 1 punish Kngland. <i' b* l fj' 4 ' ' innif vhicli goes to indicate that lacy , ha' ; up nil hope of Join.; it tliH!l-| ?( V *3.