SCIENCE NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 238, 6 April 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

SCIENCE NOTES.

KLMTRICAL DRIVING FOR ROLLING MILLS. .Wording to Mr. Antony Ablett, A..\].('.K., of London, the electrical driving of rolling mills is being adopted more extensively every year in England. The opinion had been expressed in some quarters that electrical driving did not pay for sheet mills, but that was quite contrary to general experience—vi/*, that where the power required was most variable, electrical driving proved the most economical. As sheet milln required such a great variation in power, they should oiler the most promising field for effecting economies by electrical driving.

CHINESE FIRST I'APEU MAKERS.

An American Consul in Tokio states that next to cotton spinning, the production of paper is Japan's greatest industry. Centuries before Occidental peoples learned to manufacture paper from rags it was being made in China from actual fibres. From China this'art was carried to Europe through Central Asia by the Arabs. It is true that the Egyptians are considered to have been the first paper makers, but the papyrus wag not real paper, but merely the peeled bark of reeds growing on the banks of the Nik'. The material for making paper first employed by the Chinese was the so-called paper mulberry bush, which is known as kozu invJapan. Besides this, the Japanese use ganpi, which grows in the mountains of Skikoku, a large island south-west of Kobe, and in the central part of the main island. The Prefectures «f Nochi, Shim and Nagawa, on Skikoku, and Gifu, on the main island, north of the city of Nagoya, lead in paper production. These regions are all within the sphere of the Kobe Consulate. Another plant of no less importance as material for pulp is mitsumata.

AVIATION DE LUXE,

A passenger-carrying aeroplane with an enclosed upholstered body, seating four persona, has just been completed by the Bleiiot firm for M. Deutsch de la Meurthe, the French petrol king. The body is modelled on an up-to-date Limousine motor-car body, contains four upholstered seats, and is amply provided at the side and in front with glass windows, affording a splendid view of the underlying country from an unusually good point of vantage. The chauffeur has a seat—exposed to the full rush of air—on a small platform immediately in front of the body, and controls his machine by means of a steering-wheel fashioned on the model of that of the motor ear. The plane* stretch backwards overhead right out of view. To the passenger, reclining in his luxurious arm chair, there will, in fact, be no indication that he is not seated in an ordinary motor car—until his machine gradually and imperceptibly begins to take its flight into the pir. For all the stirring emotions it excites, Hying haß hitherto beon regarded as a process involving a certain measure of discomfort, but with the advent of the aerial touring car—or plane—society may now take to the air without any further misgivings.

COMFORTABLE TRAVELLING FOR

INVALIDS.

The North-Eastern Railway Company have recently built at their carriage works at York two bogies saloons, specially designed for the comfort of invalids and convalescents. The bodies of the coaches are 50ft. 6in over ends. oft over waist mouldings, with a clear inside height at the centre of 7ft 9in. The roof is of the semi-elliptical form. Immediately adjoining the vestibule is tlte lavatory, fitted with every modern convenience, and adjacent is a compartment lft 6ra long. The seats are so arranged that should occasion require they can be pulled outwards to form a berth. Ventilation is obtained by hinged ventilators over the quarter lights and torpedo air extractors in the ceiling, with valves worked from a quadrant on the partition. The main saloon is 20ft long. Double entrance doors are arranged in' order to allow of a direct access of an ordinary bath-ehair or stretcher without disturbing the invalid. The decoration is in well-chosen colors, and the furnishing is on a liberal scale. In one of the saloons there is an adjustable couch with drop ends and pull-out back, with a shelf above ifor glasses and flowers. This couth will take a standard military'or ambulance stretcher. In a recess behind the lavatory a small electric heater is installed for supplying warm nourishment en route. Behind the main lavatory is a compartment for maids or attendants, and electric-bell communication is arranged throughout. The undernames are built of rolled steel sections strongly trussed, and the total weight of each coach is 27% tons.

WHAT NEXT? That electricity must have been known to the ancients has been many times l asserted, but now comes forward" an electrician in Munich—Mr. Stadelmann— who has been in times past an archaeologist, to assert that he found in Egypt, m buried walls, indications denoting the use of electric lamps. He claims that Moses brought electricity from Egypt, and that there are Biblical paragraphs which will bear him out in his statement that lightning rods were in use in th 6 temple at Jerusalem. Stadelmann believts that the serpent of bronze of Moses was nothing more nor less than an ordinary lightning rod such as is in use to-day. He points out, further, that the Ark of the Covenant, made, as it watt of wood and adorned inside and out with gold, constituted a veritable Leydoa jar, which communicated with a Hjrtifning rod on the roof, and that it was bo arranged that, under determined conditions, it could be charged with electrie fluid and produce the death of any ignor-, ant person daring to enter the sacred precincts of the Ark without necessary precautions.

SNIPING THE BOMTS-DROPPER. Mr. J. Bernard Walker, the editor at the Scientific Amerk.in, writes of aerial target practice a a follows in his paper: "We found that tint quarter deck had been turned into n veritable kite factory. Yards of red bunting, reels of wire, and . . . . light pin.-, scan Ming was . . . being built up into . . . !,ox kites, and sevtral square targets measuring each about 12ft bv ! r >fl \ 8 the wire was paid oui. the targets wore attached to it . . . and when Uiey had been lifted to a height of some' 300 ft above the w:iUt tliev wit., ready for the firing. . . <>iin practice is I'onfini'il li> ;:»(■ -jxiiißiiers and threepoundere. Tb 1 Surin-!' M i wiH ii(Torr) no •i<rninst anv aeroplane that might at> tcmnt to fvi'p'ft,l r.,u ~f m,,, t.-.^op. pin,".' .. . TV*, n,v S „n »n bullet, with a ■ v-'.vU.- of 27noft. oer second. TTM •, 1 n, : of .'1 vation of 40deg., thf~ bullet w'll reach a maxirnnnv -v" -~>. r >iV r ?--i;.s.""