Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 24, 18 June 1908, Page 35

Science Siftings

By VOLT

Weight of the World. A cubic foot of earth weighs about five and a half times as much as a cubic foot of water. A cubic mile of earth, then, weighs 25,649,300,000 tons. The volume of the earth is 255,000,000,000 cubic miles. The weight of the world without its atmosuhere is 6, ©66,250,000, 000, 000,000,000 tons. If we add to this the calculated weight of the atmosphere we get a grand t0ta1— 6,6&&,255, 819, 600, 000, 000, 000 tons. Thompson ana* the Swallow. ' The late Francis Thompson, the English poet,' says a magazine editor, ' had a great love of birds. He once told me a pretty story about a swallow. Catching, one day in the early autumn, a swallow that nested in his garden, he fastened to its wing a piece of oiled paper with the words, " Swallow, little swallow, I wonder where you pass the winter ! " The next spring the swallow returned to its nest at the usual time. Attached to its foot was another piece of oiled paper with the inscription : " Florence, at the house of Casteddarf. Cordial greetings to the friend in the North." ' Discarded Newspapers. Upon the Belgian Government railway system newspapers left in the train are the property of the nation, to be used by it (according to ' Chamber's Journal ') for the manufacture, of railway tickets. The papers are carefully collected and sent to the Jiead depot, where they are pulped and a special variety of cardboard for ticket purposes is prepared. Some idea of the amount of raw material readily available to the railway authorities from this source may be gathered from the fact that the accumulation of discarded newspapers upon the whole neework of railways aggregates about 7001 b per day, representing over 100 tons per annum. Utilisation of Peat. The problem of peat utilisation, so often pronounced hopeless, may now be considered as practically solved. By making this statement we (' Engineering ') do not mean, of course, to infer that all difficulties have been overcome, and that any kind of peat can profitably be utilised. But there can be no doubt that several moors which have been for centuries practically barren land, now yield a good coke, and in addition tar, ammonia, paraffin, and other chemical by-products. The farmers readily buy the ammonia sulphate, while chemists are qjuite aware of the value of the peat tar, because it resembles the lignite tar, and yields, like it, tar proper, pitch, phenols, paraffin, acetic acid, and methylated spirits, and the peat coke can replace charcoal as a preserving and absorbing medium. These statements may not be of particular interest to the engineer, but what will directly appeal to him is the fact that peat-coke proves itself quite equal, if not superior, to charcoal in the metallurgy of iron and steel, and in the hardening and welding operations of armor plate and engineering work, and also that it gives smokeless briquettes for marine boilers. There is undoubtedly a great opening for peat coke, which many districts will be able to produce at low cost In substitution for the now scarce charcoal. There is, further, the peat power-gas, and in addition still another side to the problem. It has been found in several localities, and, for instance, at Beuerberg, that the clay underlying the peat bogs will, when mixed with the sand also occurring in those strata, yield an excellent farming soil. Thus we may hope to convert the 1860 square miles of bog of Ireland into productive ground, and to raise and nurse industries at the same time. _^