Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 38, 21 September 1905, Page 29

Science Siftings

By 'Volt'

The Great Auk. About 70 specimens of the extinct great auk are now preserved in museums. A specimen recently sold in London brought £100. A New Breakwater. The floating breakwater under test at Torquay is a timber! frame sinking to a depth of 40 feet and supported at the land end by pontoons, the structure being thus lilted toward the sea. The frame is moored on both sides 'by long chains. As storms have little effect below a depth of 12 or 15 feet, it is believed that the structure will effectually break the force of the sea and experience with buoys and pontoons gives- confidence 'that the chains will hold. Membrane of Eggs in Surgery. A simple agent in home surgery whose v.alue seems to have been overlooked is the skin or membrane of eggs. Calling attention to this at a recent meeting of physicians in Paris, Dr. Amat cited two cases— a severe burn on a young Kill's foot and a large ulcer on the logt «f at man of forty— in which six or eight pieces of the egg membrane had been placed over a wound, which was then covered with tin-foil, fastened with dry antiseptic bandage. After four days the membrane had partially grown into the tissue x cicatrisation being hastened and a good -growth of new skin ensured. A Destructive Insect. The tiny tsetse-fly ot Africa, so formidable as a destroyer of horses and cattle, is at last indicted for manslaughter. 001. Da\id Bruce, who has been making investigations m Uganda, concludes that the parasite of ''sleeping sickness., 1 the mysterious <a»id fatal brain disease that has depopulated a large area of rich country withm ten years, has been brought from the Oongo ana is spread by the tset|e-fly. Where the fly does not exist there is no sleeping sickmesis. A very peculiar distribution of this disease is noticeable, as it is restricted to tih'Q numerous islands of the northern Victoria Nyan/a and to a belt of shore a, few miles wide but only in localities of forest with high trees and luxuriant nuclei growth. Destruction of Penguins. Tiro penguins, of which about a dozen species still exist on the rocky islands and coasts of the southern hemisphere, are of unusual interest as the survivors of the great, flightless birds. Hmman greed has been attracted to these rare creatures, and Dr. E. A. Wilson, an Enghsn naturalist, points out that within the last few years thousands of them 'have been slaughtered for oi! on Macqiuarie Island and the Aucklands, not less than 100 tons of the oil having been .recently placed on tho market. A new scheme is to establish great oil cauldrons in the Auckland Islands. Thus far the ' rookeries ' of these islands have suffered comparatively little from man, but the carrying out of the new project will bring speedy extinction to one of the most unique lifo forms of the world. The Inventor of the Lightning Rod. Almost everybody brlievee that Franklin was the inventor of 'the lightning rod, and in this one particular nearly everybody is mistaken. The first lightning conductor was not invented by the genius who is said to hsu\c ' caugiht the lip'htming wild and .played with kbits of thunder,' but by a pow Bohemian monk who lived at Swuttimijtfenr., who erected his lightning catcher on the palace of the curator of Preditz, Moravia, en June 15, 1754 'The name of this inventive monk was. Protop Dihviseh. His apparatus was composed of a pole surmomnicd by an iron rod supporting twelve curved. Ranches, and terminating \m as many metallic bO'Vns filled with iron ore and enclosed with a wooden box-like ewer. This was traversed by 27 iron-pointed rods, the- baisw of which were connected with the ore boxes. This entire system of wires was united with the earth by a largo chain.