Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 15 November 1906, Page 35

Science Siftings

By * Volt »

A Tide-predicted As most business people know, there are machines, large and small, now on the market that do all sorts of complicated calculations. The latest of these is a tide-predicter, which' computes the time of high and low - tides, now used in the United States Coast Survey Office at Washington. The predictions are made for one year in advance, and the machine does the work of forty expert computers. Bone-grafting. A novel bone-grafting operation is reported from Egypt by Dr. Voronoff. The removal of a tumor left a large hole in the rear of the skull, and instead of inserting the usual metal plate the surgeon decided to try a piece of the shoulder-blade of a live sheep. The wound healed promptly, when the accurately-fitted graft was found to be perfectly joined to the surrounding skull. A New Motor. A new motor, which il is believed will drive steamships through the ocean at the rate of 100 to 150 miles an hour, has been invented. It consists of a pipe which runs through the hold of the vessel below the water-line. Near the after end of this pipe is a cylinder charged with gas, which is vaporised from kerosene oil. An electric sparker explodes this gas, which is forced out lluough the pipe at the end of the boat. This gives the boat a kick which drives it ahead. At the same time the gas driving through the pipe at the stem creates a vacuum at the forward end into which the water rushes, so that the bolt is drawn ahead at the same time that it is driven- forward by the kick. Paper from Cotton. Another use has been found for the great cotton crops of the South. The manufacture of paper from the fibre of the cotton sLalt'c is said to be possible It is asserted that all grades of paper, from ihe best linen to the lowest commercial grade can be manufactured from cotton stales ; and in addition many by-products such as alcohol, nitrogen, material lor gun-cotton and smokeless powder. It is estimated that on an area of land producing a bale of cotton at least one 'ton of stalks can be gathered. Upon this basis, from 10,000,000 to 12,000,000 tons of raw material could be secured for the production of paper which would .increase the value of the Souths cotton crop nearly £2,000,01/0. A Gigantic River. In South, as in North America, nature does her work on the grand scale, and one of her noblest achievements is the Amazon River. Rising in the Andes it flows across the continent and discharges into the Atlantic Ocean at the Equator. The vastness of the area which it drains, amounting to 2,368,000 square miles, will be evident when it is borne in mind that this is more than the area of in Europe and Austria-Hungary. U has a length of nearly 4000 miles, is navigable for 2300 miles from the sea, and is fed by numerous streams, whioh in any other country would be ranked as great rivers. In the wet season, which lasts for about eight months, its width varies from five miles to 400. No wonder the Amazon has been called a gigantic reservoir, rather than The Human Voice by Post. To send the "human voice on a card through the mails is the object of the phonopostal, an invention which, like the record of a phonograph, registers and • reproduces the human voice. The records are made by an ordinary phonograph of the simplest possible type by means of a stylus provided with a sapphire point, i ins point presses on an impressionable substance, called ' sononne,' spread on the surface of "the card Sononne is able to stand the strain of transmission" ay mail. The sounds are inscribed in a spiral, whichcommences at the outside edge of) the card arid continues in an ever-narrowing curve until it forms a small circle, hardly the diameter of a small_coin. me record is so deeply engraved in the coated cardboard that, not more than two or three syllables are r conceniic^iner StampingS ° f the pOst office ™